DON-A-DREAA\S 


HARVEY  J. 
O'HIGGINS 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Ben  B.  Lindsey 


V 


*+o*^ 


DON-A-DKEAMS 


DON-A-DREAMS 


A  STORY  OF 
LOVE  AND  YOUTH 


BY 


HAEYEY  J.  O'HIGGINS 

AUTHOR  OP  "THE  SMOKE-EATERS" 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1906 


Copyright  1906,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published  October,  1906 


THE   BE  VINNE    PRESS 


TO  <• 

"MISTRESS  ANNE" 

TO  REMIND  HER  OF  THE  DAYS  WHEN  SHE,  TOO, 
WAS  GRAVE  WITH  YOUNG  CARE  AND  WEIGHTED 
DOWN  WITH  THE  PROBLEMS  OP  A  WHOLE  UNI 
VERSE  J  TO  RECALL  TO  HER  SOME  OP  THOSE 
TEAR-BRIGHT  DREAMS  OP  THE  FUTURE  WHOSE 
REALIZATION  IS  ALREADY  A  POSSIBILITY  ONLY 
OP  THE  PAST  ;  TO  BE  TO  HER  A  SOUVENIR  AND 
FOND  REMEMBRANCER  OP  HER  OWN  YOUTH. 

H.  J.  O'H. 


11O6209 


CONTENTS 

PART  PAGE 

i    THE  MAKE-BELIEVER      .            3 

ii   THE  DAY-DREAMER 61 

in   THE  IDEALIST ,  175 

iv  THE  VISIONARY  .                                        .           .  305 


PART  I 
THE  MAKE-BELIEVER 


DON-A-DREAMS 


THE  sun  was  an  open  hole  in  the  heavens,  like  the 
uncovered  pot-hole  of  the  kitchen  stove.  The 
winds  were  made  by  the  tossing  branches  of  the  gar 
den  maples  fanning  themselves  in  the  heat.  The  rains 
soaked  through  the  ground  to  the  ocean  of  an  under 
world,  on  which  the  crust  of  the  earth  was  floating ;  and 
the  street  hydrants  connected  with  those  waters  by  a 
length  of  pipe.  He,  himself,  was  as  hollow  as  a  rub 
ber  doll,  and  when  he  ate  he  filled  himself  with  food. 
Up  on  the  tops  of  the  clouds  the  angels  sat  in  Heaven ; 
and  God  was  a  stern  father — bearded  like  Jack's  giant 
—who  was  engaged  in  large  affairs  all  day  but  required 
a  strict  account  from  little  boys  when  He  came  home 
from  business  of  an  evening  and  looked  down  awfully 
through  the  roof  on  children  at  their  prayers. 

In  short,  it  was  a  child's  world— that  pathetically 
wonderful  world  which  is  such  a  little  round  and  level 
of  experience  surrounded  by  imagination's  so  high  and 
misty  hills.  It  was  such  a  world  as  the  old  cartogra 
phers  used  to  map— with  all  the  poetry  and  fable  of 
the  nursery  located  in  a  "Terra  Incognita"  just  over 
the  horizon.  For  though  the  boy  was  six  years  old,  he 


4  DON-A-DREAMS 

was  the  eldest  of  a  brood  of  three,  his  mother  had  be 
come  an  invalid,  and  he  had  been  neglected  in  his  most 
inquisitive  years  for  the  sicklier  infants  who  had  suc 
ceeded  him.  The  little  nursemaid,  Nannie,  had  taught 
him  to  read  in  an  "indestructible"  copy  of  "Jack,  the 
Giant-Killer ' ' ;  and  what  he  had  not  been  able  to  learn 
of  the  world  from  a  volume  of  Grimm 's  ' '  Fairy  Tales ' ' 
he  had  worked  out  according  to  his  fancy. 

When  Miss  Morris,  a  visiting  governess,  succeeded 
Nannie  as  his  teacher,  two  small  desks  were  set  up 
for  him  and  Frankie  in  the  playroom,  and  he  began 
eagerly  to  learn  the  game  of  figures  which  she  called 
"Arithmetic."  But  she  objected  to  his  methods  when 
she  found  that  1  was  a  tall,  thin  man,  and  2  a  little 
old  woman  bent  double,  and  3  a  fat  cook  with  an 
apron-string  waist,  and  4  a  boy  sitting.  There  fol 
lowed  explanations  of  things  in  general,  and  Miss 
Morris  spent  a  morning  asking  questions  and  laugh 
ing  at  the  answers  she  got.  She  set  herself,  with  pa 
tience,  to  correct  his  mistaken  fancies;  and  he  bore 
it  as  a  child  must.  But  when  she  said  that  all  fairy 
tales  were  untruths  and  denied  Jack  and  his  Giant 
any  existence  in  reality,  he  began  to  doubt  her;  and 
after  she  had  gone,  he  turned  to  the  book  itself,  and 
found  her  word  outweighed  by  the  strong  authority 
of  the  print  and  the  pictures. 

He  said  nothing;  he  had,  already,  the  habit  of  si 
lence.  But,  thereafter,  when  she  taught  him  that 
"the  world  was  round  like  an  orange  and  flattened 
at  the  poles,"  he  looked  out  the  playroom  window 
and  saw  a  level  earth  that  stretched  away  from  the 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  5 

brick-and-stone  realities  of  the  street  into  the  sunset 
glow  and  horizon  clouds  of  fairyland  and  "  Terra  In 
cognita."  When  she  heard  him  describe  a  void  of 
hunger  by  saying  that  his  legs  were  empty,  and  ex 
plained  to  him  the  tubular  construction  of  his  insides, 
it  did  not  prevent  him  from  keeping  his  legs  as 
straight  as  possible  under  the  dinner  table  so  that  his 
food  might  have  an  easy  passage  down  to  his  hollow 
feet.  And  although  she  denied  that  the  crust  of  the 
earth  floated  on  water,  he  watched  with  as  much 
anxiety  as  ever  how  the  men  dug  in  the  street— afraid 
that  the  bottoms  would  fall  out  of  the  drain  pits 
which  they  were  making,  and  drop  them  all  into  the 
under  ocean. 

Then,  one  morning,  when  she  was  coming  upstairs 
to  teach  him,  he  heard  her  say  to  his  mother:  "He 
has  such  babyish  fancies  about  so  many  things." 

His  mother  replied:  "Babyish  fancies?"  in  a  tone 
that  resented  the  criticism  of  her  boy  as  a  reflection 
on  herself. 

"Like  Santa  Glaus,"  Miss  Morris  added  hastily. 
"Only  about  other  things." 

"Well,"  his  mother  said,  "I  think  I  should  leave 
the  child  his  Santa  Glaus." 

Miss  Morris  came  up  to  the  playroom  in  high  color. 
As  soon  as  their  books  were  opened,  she  said  to  Donald : 
"I  suppose  you  believe  in  Santa  Glaus?" 

She  smiled  as  she  said  it;  but  he  knew  that  smile. 

"Isn't  he?"  he  faltered. 

"Is  n't  he  what?" 

"Is  n't  he— really?" 


6  DON-A-DREAMS 

She  did  not  answer.  "We  '11  begin,"  she  said, 
"with  yesterday's  lesson  again.  You  '11  have  to  make 
better  progress  Donald,  or  Frankie  '11  catch  up  to 
you." 

He  made  no  progress  that  morning;  and  when  the 
lessons  were  finished  and  Miss  Morris  had  gone,  he 
found  himself  fallen  on  a  withered  day.  All  the 
witchery  and  surprise  of  his  Christmas  were  threat 
ened;  and  his  mother's  "Leave  the  child  his  Santa 
Glaus"  was  as  humiliating  as  Miss  Morris's  cold 
smile. 

He  spread  the  rug  on  the  floor  in  the  accepted 
configuration  of  a  battlefield,  but  he  lost  heart  for 
the  game  before  he  had  his  first  fort  built  and  his 
soldiers  drawn  up  in  rank  for  Frankie 's  cannonade 
of  marbles.  He  took  hold  of  the  end  of  the  rug,  and 
tossed  the  whole  campaign  into  the  air  with  a  jerk 
that  threw  his  brother  off  his  balance  and  bumped 
the  back  of  his  head  against  the  table  leg.  Frankie 
went  bawling  down  the  stairs;  and  Don  locked  the 
playroom  door  against  the  visit  of  any  avenging 
Nannie. 

No  one  came.  He  was  left  to  fret  about  the  room 
in  aimless  discontent. 

Now  before  every  Christmas  in  the  past,  he  had 
sent  letters  to  Santa  Glaus  with  Nannie's  help — let 
ters  that  had  been  meaningless  scrawls  of  lead  pencil, 
because  he  had  not  then  learned  to  write.  He  had 
"posted"  them  in  a  crack  of  the  attic  floor  at  the 
foot  of  a  large  post  that  supported  the  beams  of  the 
roof;  and  on  every  Christmas,  the  toys  which  he  had 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  7 

written  for,  had  been  waiting  for  him  in  the  nursery. 
It  occurred  to  him,  now,  that  he  could  use  that  post 
to  put  Santa  Glaus  to  the  proof.  He  tore  a  sheet 
from  his  scribbling  book,  and  after  a  half -hour's  la 
bor  achieved  a  letter  which  was  intended  to  read: 
"Dear  Santa  Glaus— Please  write  me  a  letter.  Miss 
Morris  laughed  because  if  I  believed  in  Santa  Glaus 
and  I  want  a  letter  because  I  never  saw  you.  You 
won't  let  us  see  you.  I  will  write  to-morrow  or  some 
other  day  about  what  I  want  for  Christmas.  Please 
excuse  mistakes.  I  must  now  say  good-bye.  So  good 
bye." 

The  act  relieved  him  like  a  prayer;  for,  of  itself, 
it  gave  Santa  Glaus  the  reality  of  a  being  to  whom 
a  petition  could  be  sent.  He  dropped  his  letter  into 
the  crack  of  the  attic  floor  and  felt  himself  confirmed 
in  his  faith. 

But  Miss  Morris,  as  an  educator,  held  that  children 
should  not  be  brought  up  on  lies;  and  every  day  she 
explored  his  mind  for  more  of  this  "nursery  non 
sense";  and  every  day,  she  let  the  cold  daylight 
of  common  sense  in  on  some  cherished  corner  of  his 
twilight  world.  The  snow  that  had  begun  to  fall, 
melting,  on  the  warm  earth,  had  not  been  shoveled 
over  the  edges  of  the  clouds  by  any  celestial  garden 
ers  cleaning  the  walks.  Jack  Frost  was  not  a  little 
man  with  a  blue  nose  who  came  at  night  to  breathe 
on  the  window  panes.  The  dreams  of  a  boy  in  a 
warm  cot  were  an  affair  of  the  stomach,  and  there 
was  no  such  place  as  Nannie's  ' ' Slumberland. "  Don 
took  refuge  behind  an  obstinate  silence  from  which 


8  DON-A-DREAMS 

no  questions  could  draw  him,  but  his  education  went 
on  none  the  less,  and  he  could  only  oppose  it  with 
the  conscious  effort  of  a  make-believe.  She  laughed 
at  him  one  day  when  she  found  him  engaged  in  a 
mimic  war  with  his  blocks  and  marbles,  and  he  locked 
himself  and  Frankie  in  the  playroom  afterward.  She 
was  superior  Science  smiling  tolerantly  at  the  simpli 
city  of  Faith;  he  could  only  blush  and  flee  from  her. 

However,  she  said  no  more  to  him  about  his  Santa 
Glaus,  and  Frankie  and  he,  lying  in  bed  in  the  morn 
ings—with  the  light  from  the  snow  reflected  on  the 
ceiling,  and  the  sound  of  Canadian  farm  sleds  creak 
ing  down  the  road  with  a  jingle  of  bells— "talked 
Ch'is'mas"  together,  and  were  happy.  Don  explained 
an  idea  he  had  of  how  Santa  Glaus  could  transport 
such  millions  of  toys  in  one  sleigh:  he  loaded  the 
clouds  with  them,  from  the  top  windows  of  his  tower 
ing  ice  palace,  and  sent  them  floating  down  the  wind 
to  the  cities;  then,  with  his  reindeer  sleigh  that  flew 
in  the  air,  he  delivered  them  from  chimney  to  chim 
ney;  and  when  he  had  emptied  his  sacks  of  one  cargo, 
he  drove  back  to  the  nearest  cloud  for  another. 
Frankie,  blown  about  on  high,  with  this  description, 
pressed  his  hands  into  the  sinking  sensation  that  took 
him  in  the  middle,  and  gloated,  round-eyed;  and  Don 
day-dreamed  of  Christmas  in  a  heart-tickling  content. 

But,  on  the  eve  of  the  great  mystery,  his  letter  and 
the  suspicion  that  had  inspired  it  recurred  to  him; 
he  caught  the  twinkle  of  a  conspiracy  in  the  smiles 
of  the  household;  his  elders  repeated  too  often  a  strict 
injunction  that  when  he  went  to  bed  he  was  to  close 
his  eyes  tightly  and  go  to  sleep  at  once.  Why?  "Be- 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  9 

cause,  Donald,"  his  mother  answered  him,  kissing 
him  good-night,  ''if  Santa  Glaus  sees  you  looking  at 
him,  he  '11  fly  away  and  not  leave  you  anything."  He 
made  no  reply — being  confused  with  much  thought. 

Their  bed  room— Frankie's  and  his— had  been 
moved  to  the  top  of  the  house  to  protect  the  slumbers 
of  the  new  baby  in  the  nursery.  Their  playroom  had 
been  built  for  a  billiard  room,  and  it  was  divided  from 
the  bedroom  by  a  pair  of  large  folding  doors  with 
glasses  newly  frosted.  Don  had  once  licked  at  that 
frosting  in  a  mistaken  idea  that  it  was  the  same  as 
the  icing  of  a  cake.  Finding  it  tasteless,  he  had 
scratched  at  it  with  a  penknife,  and  so  had  made  a 
peephole  which  he  had  since  used  when  hiding  from 
Miss  Morris. 

Now,  just  as  he  was  falling  asleep— (he  had  ex 
plained  that  phrase  "falling  asleep"  to  himself  by 
imagining  a  physical  sensation  of  falling  through  the 
floor  with  his  bed,  and  so  induced  sleep  by  confusing 
his  brain  with  the  whirl  and  giddiness  of  his  descent.) 
—Now,  when  the  bed  was  well  through  the  floor  and 
was  beginning  to  rock  gently  down  to  "  Slumberland, " 
the  thought  of  this  peephole  in  the  frosted  door  came 
to  him  with  a  vividness  of  suggestion  that  might  have 
made  it  seem,  to  an  older  mind,  a  prompting  of  the 
devil.  It  came  with  all  the  terrifying  seductiveness, 
the  fear  and  fascination,  of  a  tempting  against  con 
science.  Santa  Glaus  was  to  be  in  the  playroom,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  glass  doors.  Their  stockings  had 
been  hung  there  for  him,  and  the  peephole  was  on  that 
side  of  the  room  on  which  he  would  leave  his  gifts. 

Don  started  up  in  his  bed,  and  gazed  at  the  squares 


10  DON-A-DREAMS 

of  light  that  were  framed  in  the  doorcase.  Frankie 
had  compelled  the  oblivion  of  young  sleep  by  a  stub 
born  silence,  and  now  breathed  a  regular,  small  breath. 
There  was  no  sound  of  any  movement  in  the  playroom. 

He  debated  the  situation  with  himself.  If  Santa 
Glaus  should  see  him  watching,  he  would  not  leave 
any  gifts;  his  mother  herself  had  said  so.  Yes,  but 
behind  the  frosted  glasses  how  could  Santa  Glaus  see 
him?  And  yet,  why  risk  it,  since  an  answer  to  the 
letter  would  be  enough.  Well,  if  Santa  Glaus  would 
not  allow  himself  to  be  seen,  would  he  allow  himself 
to  write?  And  if  he  objected  to  being  spied  on,  what 
would  he  think  of  a  boy  who  wrote  to  him  to  put  him 
to  the  proof? 

He  lay  back  on  his  pillows  and  blinked  at  the  dim 
ceiling. 

He  was  startled  into  staring  wakefulness— it  seemed 
only  an  instant  later — by  the  sound  of  the  glass  doors 
being  shut  with  caution.  Someone  must  have  looked 
into  the  room!  It  must  have  been  Santa  Glaus  mak 
ing  certain  that  he  was  not  being  watched! 

Don  clutched  the  side  of  his  cot,  frightened  at  the 
danger  he  had  escaped  and  thankful  that  he  had  es 
caped  it;  and  under  both  feelings,  he  was  glad  beyond 
words  that  Santa  Glaus  was  "really."  He  listened, 
holding  his  breath  with  awe. 

A  box  fell  in  the  playroom.  The  noise  was  followed 
by  a  suppressed  giggle.  It  was  Nannie's  giggle.  And 
Don  had  no  sooner  heard  it  than  he  was  over  the 
side  of  his  cot  and  tip-toeing  across  the  room,  with  the 
truth  already  heavy  on  his  chest. 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  11 

He  put  his  eye  to  the  peephole.  When  he  turned 
away  from  the  door,  he  stumbled  blindly  to  his  bed 
and  buried  his  face  in  the  pillows  and  cried  himself 
to  sleep. 

YEARS  afterward,  when  experience  had  discovered 
to  him  his  own  personality,  he  saw  in  that  small  in 
cident  the  little  gist  and  prologue  of  his  life. 


II 


IN  the  gray  of  the  Christmas  morning,  he  woke  to 
his  disillusionment;  but  he  woke  also  to  the  thought 
that  he  must  not  tell  Frankie;  and  he  woke,  in  fact, 
no  longer  an  infant,  but  an  elder  brother,  desperately 
sophisticated  and,  beside  Frankie 's  enthusiasm,  even 
blase.  Thereafter,  his  make-believes  were  conscious 
always;  and  he  began  to  play  with  his  imagination 
for  a  game. 

Being  exiled  from  the  nursery  to  escape  the  scarlet 
fever,  he  was  on  a  visit  to  an  aunt  who  lived  at  the 
other  end  of  the  town;  and  on  an  eventful  morning, 
he  woke,  alone  in  his  cot,  to  hear  his  two  cousins 
whispering  together  within  their  high  spindle  pali 
sade  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  room.  He  opened 
one  sleepy  eye  to  see  that  they  were  playing  ''Mam 
moth  Cave,"  a  game  which  he  had  taught  them.  (It 
required  that  you  cover  yourself  with  the  bed  clothes, 
turn  flat  on  your  face,  and  wriggle  down  through  the 


12  DON-A-DEEAMS 

suffocation  of  "between  sheets"  until  your  head  came 
out  at  the  foot  of  the  bed.)  He  did  not  rouse  him 
self;  for  the  three  children  had  formed  an  agreement 
that  no  one  of  them  should  rise  before  the  others,  so 
that  if  one  wished  to  take  an  extra  forty  winks  while 
breakfast  waited,  they  all  lay  in  bed  together  and  the 
wrath  of  the  powers  of  the  household  spent  itself  in 
a  general  thunder  that  did  not  strike. 

But  their  restlessness  continued ;  and  when  he  heard 
a  sly  chuckle,  he  asked  thickly:  ''What  're  you  do 
ing?"  The  over-prompt  "Nothing!"  of  their  an 
swer  wakened  him.  He  rose  on  his  elbow.  Their 
wriggling  ceased,  and  their  two  stolid  faces  stared 
blandly  at  him  out  of  the  bed  clothes. 

One  of  them  said,  with  a.  blink:  "Who  can  make 
the  highest  cant 'lever  bridge?"  (This  was  another 
of  his  inventions.  To  do  it  you  stretched  yourself 
out  on  your  back,  and  then,  with  your  elbows,  raised 
an  arch  of  body  supported  on  neck  and  heels.)  But 
while  the  elder  cousin  was  getting  himself  up,  he 
lifted  the  corner  of  his  coverlet  accidentally,  and 
Don  saw  the  black  sleeve  of  his  jacket.  He  cried 
' '  You  're  dressing ! ' ' 

They  were  already  dressed.  The  playing  "canf- 
lever  bridge"  had  been  a  ruse  by  which  they  covered 
an  attempt  to  draw  up  their  knickerbockers  to  their 
waists.  And  all  their  other  contortions  had  covered 
similar  treasons. 

They  ran  away  to  breakfast,  shouting;  and  Don 
almost  wept  with  chagrin  and  disappointment.  It 
was  so  low  a  betrayal  of  his  confidence— so  treacher- 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  13 

OTIS  a  misuse  of  his  beloved  make-believes — that  he 
felt  he  never  would  forgive  them.  He  sulked  through 
a  cold  breakfast,  and  went  out  alone  to  the  lawn,  re 
fusing  to  speak  to  either  of  them,  though  his  aunt 
attempted  to  placate  him  with  a  candy  stick. 

He  took  a  picture  book  with  him  to  console  him 
self  in  solitude;  but  he  found  the  hired  man  cutting 
the  grass;  and  on  his  neighbor's  veranda,  a  very 
young  lady  with  a  doll  was  watching  the  work.  Don 
also  watched. 

"He— he  's  cutting  the  grass,"  she  explained. 
"And  when  he  has  it  all  cut,  he — he  puts  water  on 
it  to — to  make  it  grow  again — so — so  he  can  cut  it 
again." 

He  accepted  the  explanation  in  the  spirit  in  which 
it  was  offered;  she  introduced  herself  as  "Miss 
Margaret,"  a  title  which  she  had  taken  from  the 
family  servants ;  and  in  a  few  moments  he  was  seated 
on  the  front  steps  beside  her,  their  heads  together 
over  the  picture  book,  and  each  sucking  a  share  of 
the  candy  stick.  And  Miss  Margaret's  share  was  the 
larger. 

Between  bites,  he  explained  the  pictures.  When 
there  was  a  castle  in  the  background,  he  could  tell 
exactly  in  what  room  of  it  the  princess  was  locked. 
On  demand,  he  described  the  ogre,  who  was  her 
jailer,  to  the  very  wart  on  the  knob-end  of  his  nose; 
and  he  pictured  every  article  of  the  gold  and  silver 
furnishings  of  the  palace  with  a  realistic  detail  that 
made  Miss  Margaret  gasp.  Before  the  b'ook  was  fin 
ished,  they  had  become  such  friends  that  she  let  him 


14  DON-A-DREAMS 

wipe  his  sticky  fingers  on  her  handkerchief.  "You 
have  n't  remembered  yours,"  she  apologized  for  him. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "boys  don't  ever  have  them." 

She  thought  the  matter  over.  She  said:  "You  can 
always  borrow  mine." 

It  was  so  delicately  put  that  with  a  masculine  ob- 
tuseness,  he  did  not  get  her  meaning.  It  was  Miss 
Margaret's  surrender. 

She  was  visiting  the  next  door  neighbors;  and  Don 
and  she,  during  the  two  weeks  that  followed  their 
meeting,  were  together  constantly.  He  deserted  his 
cousins,  and  she  left  the  youngsters  with  whom  she 
had  been  playing.  She  learned  to  storm  block-forts 
with  battalions  of  colored  marbles  that  were  cavalry 
at  one  moment  and  cannon  balls  at  the  next;  to  make 
siege  guns  of  cuts  of  elderberry  bush  bored  of  their 
pith;  and  to  lay  out  a  national  cemetery  for  lead 
soldiers  with  dominoes  for  gravestones.  When  she 
came  to  the  game  of  imprisoned  princess,  she  was 
already  more  than  a  pupil,  and  she  dictated  the  be 
havior  of  the  regal  beauty  in  a  way  which  Don  could 
not  follow.  She  insisted  that  the  prince  should  die 
of  his  wounds— after  he  had  killed  ten  dragons  and 
the  ogre — and  leave  the  princess  to  weep  out  the 
eyes  of  her  youth  beside  his  tomb.  Don  could  see  no 
right  fun  in  that,  and  her  contempt  was  galling. 
They  compromised  by  agreeing  to  give  the  game  a 
tragic  ending  every  third  time  they  played  it;  and 
he  consented  to  the  substitution  of  a  little  china  doll 
for  the  "Noah's  wife,"  shaped  like  a  blue  hourglass, 
which  he  had  always  used  as  the  imprisoned  beauty. 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  15 

Their  friendship  thickened  until  he  distinguished 
himself  by  climbing  up  the  pillar  of  a  side  veranda 
to  call  "good  morning"  through  the  window  to  her 
while  she  was  still  in  bed;  and  she,  at  dinner,  refused 
to  eat  stewed  corn,  a  dish  of  which  she  was  ravenously 
fond,  because  he  had  told  her  that  it  had  once  made 
him  ill.  She  was  a  most  unusual  young  lady,  especi 
ally  in  affairs  of  the  heart:  she  was  impulsively  posi 
tive  in  her  likes  and  her  dislikes,  and  she  expressed 
either  always  unreservedly.  She  treated  Don's  el 
der  cousin,  Conroy,  with  a  coldness  which  the  boy 
demanded  an  explanation  of:  and  she  explained  sim 
ply  "I  don't  like  your  face."  She  crossed  the  ve 
randa  to  a  visitor — to  whom  she  had  not  been  intro 
duced — and  sat  herself  on  his  knee,  smiling  the 
frankest  admiration;  and  when  she  was  asked  to  ex 
cuse  her  abruptness,  she  replied  "He's  nice."  She 
flattered  Don  with  an  adoration  that  went  to  his 
head. 

She  had  already  given  him  a  handkerchief  worked 
with  her  monogram  in  pale  blue  silk — for  his  sticky 
fingers,  though  she  did  not  say  so — and  she  came  one 
afternoon  to  their  playroom  in  the  broken  "summer 
house"  with  a  photograph  of  herself  in  her  winter 
furs.  He  was  busy  making  preparations  for  the 
burial  of  a  lead  hero  who  had  been  killed  in  the  wars. 
He  accepted  the  picture  with  a  brief  condescension 
and  directed  her  to  line  up,  in  funeral  procession, 
the  wooden  animals  from  his  Noah's  ark.  She  obeyed 
him  silently,  but  not  with  her  usual  enthusiasm;  and 
when  the  last  strain  of  martial  music  had  died  away, 


16  DON-A-DREAMS 

and  Don  had  fired  the  last  "Boom"  of  imaginary 
cannon  over  the  soldier's  grave,  she  said  abruptly: 
"You  ought  to  give  me  one." 

"One  what?" 

"Picture.    A  picture  of  yourself." 

He  shook  his  head.  "Haven't  any."  He  was 
erecting  a  tomb  of  building-blocks  over  the  grave.  She 
watched  him  moodily.  When  he  came  to  put  on 
the  roof,  he  found  himself  in  difficulties;  he  had  no 
blocks  long  enough  to  reach  from  wall  to  wall.  He 
looked  around  him  for  a  substitute  and  saw  her  photo 
graph.  He  tried  it;  it  could  be  made  to  fit  exactly 
if  the  back  wall  were  moved  in  an  inch- 
She  snatched  it  from  him.  "  No ! " 

He  caught  at  it.    "Give  me  that." 

She  shook  her  head,  her  doll's  eyes  big  with  in 
dignation.  "No!" 

"I  want  it,"  he  said  angrily. 

"No."  She  backed  away  from  him.  "No.  You 
sha'  n't.  JVo/"  She  stamped  her  foot  to  stop  him  as 
he  got  up  from  his  knees.  When  he  clutched  at  her 
arm,  impatiently,  she  turned  and  ran,  screaming  "You 
sha' n't!  You  sha' n't!" 

Well,  there  were  other  building  materials  as  good 
as  her  old  photograph.  There  was  the  cover  of  the 
tin  box  in  which  he  kept  his  marbles.  He  tried  it, 
and  broke  down  a  side  of  his  mausoleum.  He  brushed 
the  ruins  away  and  began  a  towering  monument  of 
solid  blocks. 

But  Miss  Margaret  did  not  come  back,  and  he  be 
gan  to  miss  her.  He  went  nonchalantly  around  the 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  1? 

house  to  where  the  other  children  were  playing  "fire 
engine";  but  she  was  not  there.  He  inquired  next 
door,  from  the  maid-of-all-work ;  and  she  told  him 
that  Miss  Margaret's  mother  had  arrived  and  taken 
her  down  town. 

Even  then  he  did  not  suspect  what  was  in  store 
for  him.  He  thought  to  make  all  right  by  finding 
a  picture  of  himself  to  give  her;  and  the  only  picture 
that  he  had  was  one  of  his  Sunday  school— in  which 
he  stood  in  the  front  row  of  a  group  of  little  girls. 
He  wrapped  it  up  complacently  in  a  newspaper  and 
left  it  with  the  servant  for  her. 

He  learned,  next  morning,  that  she  had  gone  away 
to  her  home.  He  learned  also  that  she  had  not  liked 
the  photograph;  the  servant  returned  it  to  him  in 
small  pieces— pieces  which  she  had  swept  out  from 
behind  a  bureau  when  she  was  cleaning  the  guest 
chamber.  He  gathered  from  his  aunt  that  Miss  Mar 
garet  had  been  jealous  of  the  twenty-odd  little  girls 
who  were  in  the  picture  with  him.  She  had  left  him 
without  even  saying  good-bye. 


Ill 


DON  went  back  to  his  play  somewhat  lonely  (for  a 
day  or  two)  but  with  no  sentimental  regrets.  With 
the  selfishness  of  his  years,  he  forgot  her  in  the  ex 
citement  of  returning  to  his  home  to  find  Frankie 
shorn  of  his  locks  and  promoted  to  knickerbockers. 


18  DON-A-DREAMS 

(Afterward,  whenever  he  saw  a  boy  in  kilts,  he 
thought  the  youngster  wore  them  because  he  had  not 
yet  had  the  scarlet  fever.)  He  did  not  recover  Miss 
Margaret  again  until — the  24th  of  May. 

These  were  the  days  when  the  24th  of  May,  "the 
Queen's  Birthday,"  was  a  festival  for  all  loyal  Cana 
dians.  And  they  were  the  days  before  the  invention 
of  the  giant  cracker  and  the  toy  revolver.  As  yet 
only  the  "cannon" — that  first  improvement  on  the 
Chinese  cracker — was  in  the  toy-shop  windows;  and 
although  Don  had  bought  five  of  them  (believing  in 
weight  of  metal  as  against  rapidity  of  fire)  Frankie 
had  bought  only  crackers  of  smaller  calibre.  It  re 
mained  to  be  seen  whether  his  rattling  volleys  would 
be  a  match  for  Don's  great  guns. 

They  had  been  forbidden  to  begin  their  celebration 
until  after  breakfast,  and  they  raced  through  the  meal 
neck  and  neck.  They  finished  together  and  ran  upstairs 
together;  but  Don  stumbled  and  fell  on  the  landing, 
and  Frankie  reached  the  toy  closet  first.  There  the 
crackers,  Roman  candles,  pin-wheels  and  what  not, 
were  laid  out  on  the  floor  in  two  long  rows,  in  fond 
imitation  of  ordnance  in  an  arsenal;  and  Frankie 
began  to  cram  his  purchases  in  his  pockets  as  fast  as 
as  he  could  pick  them  up.  Don  shoved  in  beside  him, 
panting,  to  see  that  his  brother  was  taking  two  can 
non  crackers  which  he  did  not  own;  and  Don,  as  the 
rightful  owner  of  them,  snatched  at  them,  to  hold 
them  till  he  could  get  breath  to  protest.  He  caught 
them  by  their  long  fuses;  and  Frankie,  jerking  back, 
plucked  the  strings  out  by  the  roots. 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  19 

Now  Frankie  was  a  sturdy  little  fellow— round- 
headed  and  bent-browed— and  he  had  learned  that  he 
could  domineer  over  his  milder  brother  by  flying  into 
a  childish  passion  whenever  he  was  crossed.  He 
struck  at  Don,  at  once;  but  Don,  enraged  by  the  loss 
of  his  two  best  crackers,  closed  with  him;  and  in  a 
wild  interchange  of  buffets,  Frankie  took  a  blow  on 
the  face  that  sent  him  to  the  floor  howling  with  a 
bleeding  nose. 

Don,  stiff  and  white  with  fright,  was  still  standing 
in  the  door  of  the  closet,  looking  as  guilty  as  Cain, 
with  Frankie  yelling  on  the  carpet  at  his  feet,  when 
their  father— home  for  the  holiday— flung  angrily 
into  the  room.  He  took  in  the  situation  with  one 
furious  glance;  and  then,  without  waiting  for  any 
explanation,  seized  Don  by  the  collar  and  began  cuff 
ing  him  with  a  brutally  hard  hand. 

No  doubt  he  did  not  know  how  heavily  he  struck 
the  boy,  for  he  had  never  beaten  any  of  his  children 
before— being  able  to  awe  them  with  the  mere  threat 
of  his  voice— and  Don  was  too  stunned  to  cry  out. 
As  soon  as  he  was  released,  he  staggered  back  against 
the  wall,  his  head  ringing,  the  breath  all  out  of  his 
body,  blinded  with  tears.  His  father,  taking  Frankie 
up,  carried  him,  still  bawling,  out  of  the  room. 

It  was  Don's  first  experience  of  these  passionate 
griefs  of  childhood — griefs  that  rend  the  body  with 
terrible  convulsions,  griefs  that  seem  to  rend  the  very 
soul  of  the  child  with  the  pain  of  an  injustice  from 
which  there  is  no  appeal.  It  was  his  first  experience 
of  them,  and  he  threw  himself  on  the  floor  of  the 


20  DON-A-DREAMS 

toy  closet  like  a  child  in  a  fit.  He  flung  the  fire 
crackers  away  from  him;  he  beat  the  floor  with  his 
little  fists;  he  ran  to  the  door  of  the  playroom,  locked 
it,  and  dropped  on  the  rug  there  choked  with  the 
sobs  that  burst  from  him,  in  writhing  and  weeping, 
till  he  was  too  weak  to  do  more  than  moan. 

Nannie  came,  and  tapped  secretly  on  the  door,  and 
cried  "Donnie?  Bonnie?"  under  her  breath.  But 
he  knew  from  her  tone  that  he  was  in  disgrace  with 
the  household,  and  he  would  not  open  to  her. 

''They  're  goin'  on  the  picnic,"  she  whispered 
hoarsely. 

He  knew  they  were;  and  he  knew  that  his  father 
would  punish  him  by  leaving  him  at  home.  He  did 
not  intend  to  go  downstairs  and  take  his  sentence. 
He  held  quiet  until  Nannie  had  gone  away,  and  then 
he  crawled,  numb  and  exhausted,  into  the  bedroom 
and  threw  himself  on  his  cot. 

He  heard  knocking  on  his  door  faintly,  in  a  weak 
doze,  but  he  did  not  get  up.  He  heard  his  mother 
calling  him,  up  the  stairs  which  she  was  unable  to 
climb;  but  he  did  not  reply.  Only  when  he  heard 
voices  on  the  lawn,  he  peeped  out  behind  the  cur 
tain  and  saw  her  in  her  invalid  chair,  his  father 
wheeling  her— with  the  baby  on  his  arm— and 
Frankie  walking  proudly  at  her  side.  They  turned 
at  the  gate  to  call  a  last  good-bye  to  Nannie;  and 
his  mother  looked  up  at  the  nursery  windows  with 
a  face  that  often  came  with  tears,  to  Donald,  after 
ward,  in  dreams. 

He  jumped  back  and  dropped  the  curtain.     When 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  21 

he  heard  Nannie  close  the  front  door,  he  looked  out 
again.  They  were  gone. 

There  were  no  more  tears  in  him.  He  went  back 
to  the  playroom,  dumbly,  and  sat  down  among  his 
toys.  The  sight  of  the  fire-crackers  gave  him  a  sick 
ening  feeling.  He  began  to  set  up  his  soldiery  as 
mechanically  as  an  older  person  would  turn  from 
grief  to  an  accustomed  task. 

But  weeping  had  made  him  hungry,  and  he  de 
serted  his  wars  to  look  out  a  side  window  at  the 
neighboring  fire-hall  clock.  Then,  from  the  window, 
he  went  to  a  wall  of  colored  pictures  which  Frankie 
and  he  had  cut  from  the  "Christmas  Graphic"  and 
pinned  up  on  the  plaster;  and,  at  last,  he  began  to 
wander  from  picture  to  picture,  "playing  showman" 
as  Frankie  and  he  had  done. 

He  was  before  a  picture  of  Nelson  at  Trafalgar, 
glowing  with  an  imagined  eloquence  which  did  not 
shape  itself  in  words  at  all,  and  swaying  a  huge  pub 
lic  with  emotion— (let  his  father  beat  him  then)  — 
when  suddenly  he  saw  Miss  Margaret  sitting  in  the 
front  row  of  his  audience. 

The  audience  vanished.  Don  had  found  for  him 
self  that  strange  companion  of  so  many  solitary 
children,  an  imaginary  playmate. 

H.e  made  a  round  of  the  pictures  with  her,  played 
Imprisoned  Princess  and  the  Game  of  War,  and  took 
her  on  a  tour  of  the  empty  house.  He  showed  her 
the  post  in  the  attic  where  he  mailed  his  letters  to 
Santa  Glaus,  and  he  assured  her  that  Santa  Glaus 
never  failed  to  answer  them.  He  took  her  to  his 


22  DON-A-DREAMS 

mother's  room  and  let  her  tumble  in  the  prohibited 
feather  bed.  He  explored  behind  the  big  green  sofa 
in  the  sitting-room,  and  took  down  all  the  forbidden 
books  in  his  father's  library  to  show  them  to  her. 

Nannie  found  him  there,  and  summoned  him  to 
luncheon;  and  Miss  Margaret  ate  beside  him  in  an 
imaginary  chair  from  a  wonderful  blue  bowl,  long 
since  broken,  which  he  had  once  had  for  bread  and 
milk.  He  sat  in  such  a  thoughtful  silence  and  was 
so  unresponsive  to  all  Nannie's  kind  attempts  to  con 
sole  him,  that  she  lost  patience  and  accused  him  of 
sulking.  He  ignored  her  temper,  so  that  Miss  Mar 
garet  might  not  be  disturbed  by  it.  When  they  had 
finished  their  meal,  he  started  the  musical  box  for 
her,  and  teased  the  parrot  in  the  sun  of  the  window 
till  "Polly"  squawked  and  screeched  and  bit  at  the 
bars  of  the  cage;  and  Nannie  scolded  them  out  of 
the  room,  and  they  raced  upstairs  together. 

They  came  down  with  all  the  fire-crackers  and  with 
a  lead  soldier  in  a  match  box,  whom  they  buried  deep 
in  the  garden,  croqning  "Nearer  My  God  To  Thee" 
with  no  sense  of  frreverence.  They  split  all  Don's 
elderberry  guns  firing  funeral  salvos  of  crackers 
from  them;  and  they  blew  up  a  fort  with  a  "cannon" 
cracker  and  annihilated  a  whole  regiment  of  men. 
No  one  came  to  disturb  them  until  they  began  to  set 
off  pin  wheels  and  Roman  candles  in  mid-afternoon; 
then  Nannie  interfered,  and  they  ran  into  the  house 
laughing  rebelliously,  and  shut  themselves  in  the 
playroom  again. 

"Well,"  Nannie  complained  to  the  cook,  "his 
lickin'  ain't  done  him  any  good." 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVEE  23 

When  the  family  returned,  he  was  cutting  out  fig 
ures  from  the  "Graphic"  supplements  and  acting 
new  and  wonderful  games.  He  did  not  go  down 
stairs;  Frankie  came  up — full  of  the  news  of  the 
picnic  and  the  steamboat  trip  down  the  river  and 
the  glories  of  the  merry-go-round—prepared,  perhaps, 
to  gloat  over  the  fallen  estate  of  his  brother.  Don 
did  not  even  notice  him.  Frankie  insisted  on  being 
heard.  Don  gathered  up  his  pictures  and  barricaded 
himself  in  the  bedroom. 

He  remained  there  until  he  was  called  to  supper. 

"You  have  been  a  bad  boy,  Don,"  his  mother  said 
to  him  that  night.  "Your  father  's  angry  with  you." 

He  would  not  look  at  her.  His  face  was  still  swol 
len  from  his  morning's  tears,  and  streaked  with  dirt, 
and  smudged  with  powder.  His  fingers  were 
scorched.  There  was  a  hole  burned  in  the  sleeve  of 
his  jacket. 

"What  have  you  been  doing?" 

"Playing." 

"Are  n't  you  sorry?" 

He  did  not  answer. 

"Say  that  you  're  sorry,  or  I  shall  not  kiss  you 
good-night. ' ' 

He  did  not  feel  that  he  was  sorry,  and  he  did  not 
speak.  She  smoothed  his  hair  with  her  thin  hand, 
kissed  him  and  sent  him  away. 

"I  don't  seem  to  understand  him  any  more,"  she 
confessed  to  his  father  with  a  sigh. 

His  father  replied:  "He  's  growing  too  big  to  be 
running  around  here,  wild.  He  should  be  at  school." 

And  that  was  the  decree  of  judgment  which  was 


24  DON-A-DREAMS 

to  end  Don's  childhood.  He  was  left  to  his  imaginary 
Miss  Margaret  and  his  other  make-believes  through 
all  that  long,  radiant  summer;  but  in  the  fall,  Miss 
Morris  opened  a  "private  and  select"  academy  for 
boys  and  girls,  and  Don  was  enrolled  as  her  second 
pupil. 

Her  first  had  been  little  Mary  Morris,  her  small 
sister. 


IV 


BETWEEN  the  ages  of  eight  years  and  of  eighteen, 
there  seems  to  be  a  period  in  which  the  individuality 
of  the  schoolboy  does  not  develop.  The  originality 
of  the  child  has  been  overgrown;  the  eccentricities  of 
the  young  man  have  not  yet  sprouted.  Don,  seated 
at  a.  desk  that  was  exactly  like  a  score  of  other  desks 
in  Miss  Morris's  schoolroom,  studied  the  common  les 
sons  from  the  prescribed  books;  and  what  he  learned, 
he  learned  like  a  parrot.  Seated  at  home,  beside  the 
"study"  table  in  the  playroom,  he  worked  out  his  ex 
ercises  mechanically  with  Frankie,  or  idly  scorched 
the  wood  of  his  lead  pencils  over  the  flame  of  the 
lamp.  He  learned  to  play  the  games  which  his 
schoolmates  played,  to  fight  as  they  fought,  to  believe 
what  they  believed,  to  act  as  they  acted.  His  mind 
no  longer  grew  of  its  own  strength,  in  its  own  incli 
nation;  it  was  forced  in  a  hothouse  bed,  and  trained 
to  a  set  figure. 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  25 

He  was  perhaps  a  trifle  more  timorous  and  retir 
ing  than  most  of  his  classmates,  slower  to  fight, 
slower  to  learn,  and  more  given  to  what  Miss  Morris 
called  "dazing"  over  his  books;  but  in  all  the  broad 
characteristics  of  his  age,  he  was  commonplace  and 
typical.  Even  in  the  playground  he  did  nothing  to 
mark  himself  out  among  his  fellows— except  to  the 
eyes  of  little  Mary  Morris,  whose  admiration  was  so 
silent  that  he  remained  unaware  of  it.  Once  he  at 
tempted  to  take  an  impossibly  high  jump,  went  at  it 
in  a  smiling  assurance,  and  fell  over  it  with  amaze 
ment.  (He  explained,  then,  bruised  and  tearful,  that 
he  had  dreamed,  the  previous  night,  of  jumping  the 
six-foot  fence  at  the  back  of  the  yard,  and  had  leaped 
over  it  with  ease  and  grace.)  Ordinarily,  he  lacked  the 
desire  to  shine.  He  lacked  it  notably  in  comparison 
with  Frankie;  but  then  Frankie  was  growing  to  be 
the  sort  of  boy  who  will  not  let  you  pass  him  on  the 
street— even  though  he  has  to  run  to  keep  ahead  of 
you— and  who  sleeps  always  on  his  side,  with  a  leg 
drawn  up,  in  an  attitude  of  climbing  caught  from 
the  schoolbook  illustration  of  Longfellow's  "Ex 
celsior.  ' ' 

At  the  age  of  nine,  Don  was  a  weedy  boy,  slope- 
shouldered,  loose-wristed,  pale  and  very  shy.  He  was 
not  strong  enough  in  the  arm  to  enjoy  baseball ;  and 
he  was  too  weak  in  the  calves  to  relish  "Pump,  pump, 
pull  away"  or  "Hounds  and  Deer";  and  for  that 
reason,  he  did  not  join  in  half  the  games  of  the  yard 
and  the  pavement.  He  spent  his  idle  hours  reading 
stories  of  Indians,  English  boarding-school  boys  and 


26  D.ON-A-DREAMS 

midshipmen;  and  on  Sundays  he  gave  himself  with  a 
precocious  devoutness  to  church  and  Sabbath  school. 
He  had  been  impressed  with  the  teaching  that  the 
Deity  is  omnipresent;  and  in  his  solitary  moments  he 
was  almost  physically  conscious  of  the  awful  presence 
of  the  Spirit.  It  was  a  feeling  which  he  kept  as  secret 
as  a  sin ;  but  it  came  to  possess  him  with  a.  sense  of 
companionship.  He  even  played  with  it  imagina 
tively,  half  expecting  visions  and  praying  in  a  childish 
ecstasy;  and  in  the  public  park  near  his  home,  there 
was  a  thick  clump  of  bushes  in  which  he  used  to 
build  little  fires  of  chips  and  leaves  to  burn  wooden 
animals  from  his  ark  as  Hebraic  offerings. 

AMONG  the  pupils  of  Miss  Morris's  school  was 
Don's  elder  cousin  Conroy— the  boy  whose  face  Miss 
Margaret  had  not  liked;  and  between  Don  and  him 
there  had  always  been  a  boyish  ill-will  that  grew  into 
a  noticeable  enmity  as  Don  became  more  of  a  long- 
legged  weakling  and  Conroy  more  of  a  pug-nosed  and 
sturdy  bully.  The  tie  of  their  relationship,  added  to 
Don's  plain  inferiority  in  physical  strength,  kept 
them  from  any  set  fights,  but  Conroy  played  rough 
tricks  on  his  cousin,  tripped  him  slyly  in  the  class 
room,  shouldered  him  from  the  sidewalk  into  the  gut 
ter,  filled  his  cap  with  snow  and  laughingly  pelted 
and  persecuted  him  in  the  playground  and  on  the 
street.  At  the  same  time,  he  would  not  let  anyone 
else  take  the  same  liberties;  and  he  fought  more  than 
one  of  the  boys  who — in  the  expressive  idiom  of  the 
schoolyard— "  picked  on"  Don.  Conroy  plodded 
through  his  studies  as  slowly  as  Don  sauntered;  and 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVEE  27 

they  moved  along  together  at  the  foot  of  their  classes 
in  an  enforced  companionship  that  was  contemp 
tuously  kindly  on  Conroy's  side  and  at  once  grateful 
and  resentful  on  Don's. 

Then  one  day  the  cousin  came  to  school  with  the 
whole  story  of  Don's  flirtation  with  Miss  Margaret — 
a  story  he  had  learned  from  the  dinner-table  talk  of 
his  elders  on  the  previous  evening.  It  was  now  three 
years  since  she  had  passed  out  of  their  lives,  but 
Conroy  still  remembered  her  aversion  to  his  "face" 
and  her  whole-hearted  admiration  of  Don;  and  to  the 
older  point  of  view  which  he  had  newly  caught,-  Don 's 
whole  affair  had  been  a  ridiculous  childishness  that 
had  ended  in  the  still  more  ridiculous  fiasco  of  the 
torn  photograph  and  Miss  Margaret's  indifferent  de 
parture. 

It  was  shameful  to  Don  when  it  was  brought  up 
to  him  again,  and  he  blushed  and  suffered  bashfully 
under  his  cousin's  public  teasing.  "Did  she  use  to 
kiss  you  in  the  summerhouse  ? "  the  others  twitted 
him.  "Georgie  Porgie,  pudding  and  pie,"  they  called 
him.  ' '  Go  and  play  with  the  girls  and  give  them  your 
photograph. ' ' 

He  silenced  some  of  the  younger  ones  by  boxing 
their  ears;  he  was  even  irritated  into  fighting  a  boy 
of  his  own  height,  and  was  only  saved  from  a  beating 
by  Conroy's  interference.  But  the  cousin  kept  up 
his  own  teasing,  day  after  day;  and  when  Saturday 
came,  Don  went  out  alone  to  his  haunts  in  the  Park, 
almost  a  persecuted  refugee  from  the  small  society 
of  the  neighborhood. 

It  was  a  clear  June  morning,  with  a  breeze  that 

CD 


28  DON-A-DKEAMS 

rustled  in  the  driveway  maples  and  a  sunlight  that 
lay  dazzingly  white  on  the  gravel  walks;  and  Don 
looked  about  him  with  an  easing  sense  of  freedom, 
drawing  a  refreshingly  deep  breath.  He  had  not  yet 
learned  to  be  sentimental  about  nature;  he  had 
merely  an  animal  pleasure  in  the  escape  to  the  open 
where  his  eyes  could  stretch  their  book-cramped 
muscles  in  long  sight,  and  he  could  walk  free  from 
the  critical  observation  of  his  elders  and  talk  shame 
lessly  to  himself. 

He  was  heading  for  the  wilder  upper  portion  of 
the  Park — where  there  were  no  flower  beds,  and  the 
ground  had  not  been  levelled,  and  the  grass  was  un 
cut—when  he  saw  the  distant  figure  of  a  boy  coming 
after  him  across  the  lower  lawrns;  and  he  immediately 
dodged  behind  a  bed  of  lilac  bushes  bordered  with 
geraniums  and  striped  ribbon  grass.  It  was  a  large 
bed,  in  the  shape  of  a  great  crescent;  and  Don  skirted 
it,  under  cover — crouching  in  the  accepted  manner  of 
an  Indian  scout — and  peeped  around  the  far  tip  of 
the  crescent  to  see  his  cousin  Conroy  coming  up  on 
his  trail.  He  knew  it  was  against  the  law  to  enter 
one  of  these  hoed  beds  of  bushes ;  but,  seeing  no  other 
escape,  he  ran  back  and  leaped  over  the  geraniums 
and  crawled  in  among  the  lilacs  on  his  hands  and 
knees. 

He  lay  down  in  a  little  open  patch  of  ground  in 
the  center  of  the  bed  and  listened  breathlessly  for  the 
footsteps  of  his  pursuer.  After  a  long  time,  he  heard 
Conroy  calling  him  at  a  distance  up  the  Park.  He 
rose  cautiously  to  his  knees,  took  off  his  little  Scotch 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  29 

cap,  and  began  to  repeat  his  usual  prayers  in  peace. 
And  then,  to  make  his  devotions  more  real,  he  gathered 
some  broken  branches  and  small  twigs,  drove  the 
straighter  ones  into  the  soft  earth  and  put  the  others 
across  them  in  a  crude  representation  of  an  altar. 

The  story  of  that  make-believe  cannot  be  followed 
farther  without  an  appearance  of  sacrilege;  but  Don's 
memory  was  full  of  Old  Testament  stories  of  Jehovah 's 
interference  in  aid  of  his  prophets ;  he  had  not  yet 
learned  that  the  age  of  miracles  had  ceased ;  and  when 
he  came  out  of  the  bushes  again,  he  walked  like  a 
young  David  to  battle,  his  eyes  big  with  a  religious 
exaltation. 

Conroy  had  been  seeking  him  up  and  down  the 
Park,  hiding  and  watching,  without  ever  suspecting 
that  his  timid  cousin  had  dared  to  enter  f>ne  of  the 
forbidden  clumps  of  bushes;  and  as  soon  as  he  saw 
Don  in  the  open,  he  raised  a  view-haloo  and  bore  down 
on  him.  Don  doubled  up  his  fists  and  waited.  Con 
roy  came  shouting  gleefully.  He  did  not  intend  to 
tease  again;  he  had  seen  Don  going  off  alone  into  the 
Park,  and  he  had  been  taken  with  remorse  for  his  per 
secution.  In  the  bottom  of  his  boy's  heart,  he  ad 
mired  his  quiet  relative,  though  by  a  common  boyish 
perversion  of  affection  he  could  never  keep  his  rough 
hands  off  Don,  trying  to  plague  him  out  of  a  superior 
indifference  that  was  the  more  irritating  because  it 
was  so  unconscious. 

As  he  came  nearer,  he  saw  Don's  attitude  and 
stopped.  "What 's  the  matter?" 

"Keep  away  from  me." 


30  DON-A-DREAMS 

The  boy  stared.     "What   's  the  matter?" 

Don  backed  up  against  the  geraniums.  "Keep 
away  from  me." 

Conroy  raised  a  derisive  shout.  "Do  you  want  to 
fight  T' 

The  young  David  swallowed  slowly  and  shut  his 
teeth  on  the  pale-lipped  mutter  of  a  prayer.  His 
cousin  crept  in  on  him,  grinning,  and  crouched — in 
tending  to  wrestle  him  and  roll  him  on  the  grass — play 
fully.  Don  caught  him  in  the  mouth  with  a  blow 
that  knocked  him  off  his  balance.  He  jumped  to  his 
feet,  white;  and  Don  was  waiting  for  him. 

They  fought  in  a  boyish  fury,  wrestling,  kicking 
and  scratching;  Don  even  bit  his  cousin's  hand.  He 
was  whimpering  hysterically;  half  his  blows  were  go 
ing  wide;  and  Conroy  struck  at  his  head  and  face 
and  kicked  into  his  legs.  He  went  down  on  the 
grass,  but  before  Conroy  could  more  than  pant  out 
"Had  enough?"  he  was  up  again,  fighting  like  mad; 
and  the  more  Conroy  punished  him,  the  harder  he 
fought,  whining  like  an  animal,  his  face  covered  with 
blood.  He  did  not  feel  the  blows  that  blinded  him; 
and  his  endurance  was  so  unexpected,  and  his  des 
pairing  stubbornness  so  wild,  that  it  frightened  Con 
roy,  and  he,  too,  began  to  cry. 

He  tried  to  dodge  Don's  onslaughts,  but  the  boy 
flung  himself  in,  clutching  and  falling,  and  tearing 
as  he  fell;  and  Conroy  had  to  defend  himself  with 
the  most  frantically  brutal  blows.  Even  then,  sob 
bing  horribly  and  so  weak  he  could  scarcely  stand,  Don 
staggered  in  again  and  again  after  every  rebuff;  and 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  31 

when  he  fell  at  last,  he  still  struggled,  fighting  des 
pairingly,  with  the  grass. 

Conroy,  trembling  in  the  knees,  sat  down  at  a  little 
distance,  wiped  his  blubbered  face  and  picked  at  his 
torn  stockings  where  the  kick  of  Don's  heavy  shoes  had 
cut  them  and  drawn  blood.  He  looked  at  Don  with 
scared  eyes.  ' '  God !  God ! ' '  Don  screamed  suddenly, 
and  rising  to  his  hands  and  knees,  he  began  to  crawl 
toward  Conroy,  in  a  frenzy.  Conroy  jumped  to  his 
feet  and  ran ;  and  as  he  looked  back  over  his  shoulder, 
he  saw  Donald,  in  trying  to  follow  him,  topple  and 
fall  on  his  face. 

He  did  not  stop  running  till  he  came  to  the  Park 
fountain.  There,  having  washed  his  face  and  hands, 
he  sat  down  shivering  with  guilty  horror,  as  bewildered 
as  a  murderer,  unable  to  make  up  his  mind  what  to 
do.  He  was  afraid  to  go  home  and  leave  Don  there. 
He  was  afraid  to  go  back  and  face  the  prospect  of 
more  fighting.  He  had  ' '  had  enough. ' ' 

It  was  fifteen  minutes  before  he  got  himself  around 
the  bed  of  lilac  bushes  and  saw  Don  lying  motion 
less  where  he  had  fallen. 

1  'Don!"  he  called  fearfully.  "Don!  What  's  the 
matter  ?  .  .  .  I  did  n  't  mean  to.  I  did  n  't  want  to 
fight  .  .  .  Don?"  He  came  closer.  "I  'm  not  going 
to  touch  you.  I— you  hurt  me  as  much  as  I  did 
you.  .  .  .  Don?  Get  up." 

Don  began  to  moan.  Conroy  drew  nearer.  "You 
were  n't  licked,"  he  consoled,  in  a  shameful  whisper. 
"You  were  n't  licked.  .  .  I  ran  away." 

Don  sobbed:  "It— it  is  n't  that.     It  is  n't  that." 


32  DON-A-DREAMS 

Conroy  knelt  beside  him  and  began  to  wipe  his 
cousin's  torn  fingers  in  his  wet  handkerchief.  "I  '11 
never  h — hit  you" —  He  choked. 

Don,  face  down,  rolled  his  head  from  side  to  side. 
It  was  n't  that.  He  could  n't  tell  what  it  was. 

It  was  that  his  God  had  suddenly  withdrawn  into 
the  high  heavens  and  left  him;  that  He  had  shown 
Himself  not  a  God  of  personal  mercy  and  protection, 
but  of  distant  justice  and  no  partiality  of  love. 

"Come  on  back,  Don,"  Conroy  whispered.  "I 
won't  tease  you  any  more.  And  I  won't  ever  let  any 
one  else." 

IT  was  the  end  of  Don's  young  religiosity,  and  it 
was  the  beginning  of  a  mutual  respect  and  friendship 
between  Conroy  and  him.  Don  was  incurably  soli 
tary  in  his  inclinations,  but  it  became  a  solitude  of 
two;  for  Conroy  developed  a  sort  of  protective  devo 
tion  that  was  as  dumb  as  it  was  dogged.  If  Don  did 
not  come  out  to  join  in  the  games  of  the  other  boys, 
Conroy  hunted  him  down  among  his  books  and  sat 
with  him  over  them.  If  Don  stole  away  into  the  Park, 
Conroy  followed  him  up  like  a  young  "Man  Friday." 
They  played  Robinson  Crusoe  together,  and  fought 
Indians  in  the  Park  woods,  and  went  on  wonderful 
exploring  expeditions  in  those  narrow  wilds.  Don 
had  a  very  robust  and  buoyant  spirit  that  charmed 
his  cousin;  and  if  he  had  any  tendency  to  morbidness 
or  melancholy,  the  companionship  kept  it  down. 

They  worked  together  at  their  lessons  whenever  they 
could.  If  there  were  any  fights  to  be  fought,  they 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  33 

took  them  together;  and  for  that  reason  there  were 
few.  They  left  Miss  Morris's  academy  at  the  same 
time,  and  entered  an  upper  class  of  the  Public  School 
where  they  sat  side  by  side — until  their  teachers  sepa 
rated  them  for  reasons  of  discipline.  And  though 
there  was  no  girlish  sentimentality  in  their  friend 
ship,  they  were  David  and  Jonathan  for  years. 

Their  gradual  separation  began  in  the  High  School 
"forms,"  because  Don's  father— being  a  lawyer- 
wished  him  to  study  classics  in  preparation  for  the 
University  and  the  profession  of  law,  and  Conroy's 
father,  a  wealthy  wholesaler,  made  him  take  the  ' '  com 
mercial  course"  in  preparation  for  a  business  career. 
They  were  then  fifteen  years  of  age  and  sixteen,  Con- 
roy  being  the  older;  and  as  yet  in  the  great  drama  of 
life  that  was  being  played  around  them,  they  had 
taken  no  part.  Don's  mother  was  an  invalid,  and  her 
little  daughter  Mary  had  first  claim  on  her  affection; 
his  father  was  a  busy  man;  and  Frankie  had  com 
panions  of  his  own  age.  When  Don  was  not  with 
Conroy,  he  was  alone  with  his  dog. 

But  Conroy  had  a  family  of  brothers  and  sisters, 
and  a  mother  and  a  father  who  liked  to  keep  their 
children  together  in  the  house.  Don  was  shy  with 
them,  and  he  had  an  awkwardness  of  temperament 
that  prevented  him  from  joining  heartily  in  the  little 
parties  of  young  folk  that  were  so  common  in  his 
uncle's  home.  His  solitary  walks  with  "Dexter"  be 
came  more  frequent — when  the  pressure  of  Frankie 's 
rivalry  in  his  studies  did  not  keep  him  home;  for 
Frankie  had  left  Miss  Morris's  Select  Academy  with 


34  DON-A-DREAMS 

a  five-pointed  gold  medal  inscribed  "Awarded  to 
Francis  Grayson  Gregg  for  Good  Conduct,  Punctu 
ality  and  Progress";  he  had  entered  the  High  School 
at  the  head  of  his  year;  and  he  had  closed  up  on 
Don  so  nearly  that  if  the  elder  brother  ever  tripped 
on  an  examination,  now,  the  younger  would  surely 
draw  up  even  with  him. 

"You  're  wasting  too  much  time  reading  trash," 
their  father  said  to  Don,  one  night  when  he  found 
the  boy  on  a  chair  before  his  mother's  bookshelves. 

"I  've  finished  my  lessons,  sir,"  Don  pleaded. 

"What  's  that  you  're  taking?" 

It  was  a  copy  of  Eeade's  '''Put  Yourself  in  His 
Place."  Mr.  Gregg  drew  down  his  shaggy  eyebrows 
at  it.  "Put  it  back,"  he  ordered.  "That  's  no  book 
for  a  boy.  It  's  no  book  for  anyone.  Silly  trash! 
Why  don't  you  read  something  to  improve  your 
mind?"  It  irritated  him  to  find  in  Don  the  same 
sentimental  appetite  for  novels  which  his  unpractical 
wife  had  always  had.  Frankie  had  none  of  it.  He 
had  inherited  his  father's  brains. 

Don  put  up  the  book  reluctantly  and  turned  to  the 
door.  "And  you  might  as  well  understand  now," 
his  father  said,  "that  I  can't  send  you  both  to  the 
University.  And  if  Frankie  proves  himself  .  .  .better 
fitted  to  profit  by  it,  there  '11  be  no  favoritism  shown 
...  in  the  matter  .  .  .  Do  you  hear?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  Don  said,  backing  out. 

His  father  opened  his  newspaper  with  the  satis 
faction  of  having  performed  his  parental  duties  with 
a  stern  impartiality;  and  Don  went  back  rebelliously 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  35 

to  a  copy  of  Spenser's  "Faerie  Queene"  which  he  had 
begun  to  read  because  he  had  thought  it  might  be  a 
fairy  tale.  He  had  never  lost  his  love  of  fairy  tales. 


THE  "Pass  Matriculation  and  Third  Certificate 
Class,"  of  which  Don  was  a  member,  had  now  entered 
on  the  Spring  term  that  was  to  end  in  the  dreaded 
government  examination  for  admission  to  the  Pro 
vincial  University;  and  Don  was  working  like  a  slave. 
Even  his  Saturdays  he  gave  up  to  study,  and  took 
his  walks  with  a  text-book  in  his  pocket,  and  drew 
the  figures  of  his  geometrical  "deductions"  with  a 
twig  in  the  earth.  He  went  much  further  afield  than 
he  had  in  the  days  when  Conroy  and  he  had  hunted 
man-eating  tigers  in  the  Park.  He  had  found  a 
ravine,  to  the  north  of  the  town,  lying  wooded  be 
tween  two  bald-top  hills  that  had  been  sheared  for 
farm  land;  the  sides  of  the  ravine  had  been  left  un 
cut;  and  in  the  bottom  of  it,  under  the  shelter  of  firs 
and  spruces,  a  little  cool  stream  ran  between  its 
shores  of  brown  pine  needles  and  dead  leaves.  Here, 
he  read  and  dreamed  and  studied,  in  a  happy  soli 
tude  with  his  dog,  under  innumerable  green  pine 
branches,  among  the  corded  roots  of  clinging  firs,  be 
side  the  crisp  tinkle  of  little  bubbled  waterfalls. 

Conroy  knew  the  place,  but  he  did  not  often  come 
with  Don— except  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  when  there 


36  DON-A-DREAMS 

were  no  football  games  to  play  and  his  home  was 
depressingly  Sabbatical.  And  this  was  a  Saturday, 
and  Don  did  not  expect  to  be  disturbed.  He  had 
made  himself  comfortable  on  a  little  knoll  of  grass, 
with  the  stream  at  his  feet  and  the  slim  white  stem 
of  a  silver  birch  at  his  back;  Dexter  had  curled  him 
self  in  a  patch  of  sunlight  near  by,  his  nose  between 
his  paws,  blinking  sleepily;  some  wood  sparrows 
twittered  and  quarreled  among  the  evergreens. 

Don,  with  a  book  of  the  Odyssey  on  his  knees  and 
a  "crib"  in  his  hand,  fitted  the  translation  to  the 
text  and  marked  with  a  lead  pencil  the  words  he  did 
not  know.  He  was  so  busy  that  he  did  not  notice 
Dexter  when  the  dog  pricked  up  its  ears.  He  was 
murmuring:  "Then  answering  him— then  answering 
him— the  wily  Odysseus— the  wily  Odysseus— said 
'King  Alcinous'  '  —The  dog  sat  up,  its  nostrils 
twitching,  and  watched  the  trail  of  brown  path  down 
which  they  had  come.  "  'Truly  it  is  a  beautiful 
thing'— Quiet,  sir."  The  dog  had  growled.  "What  's 
the  matter  with  you?"  He  looked  up  from  his  study. 
There  was  a  girl  approaching  through  the  trees. 

He  put  his  cap  on  quickly,  and  fixed  his  attention 
on  his  book  in  a  pretence  of  absorption  which  he  in 
tended  to  maintain  until  she  had  passed.  But,  in  a 
moment,  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye,  he  saw  her 
stop ;  and  Dexter,  having  sniffed  at  the  hem  of  her 
skirt — which  came  almost  to  her  shoe-tops — barked  and 
ran  away  up  the  path.  She  came  closer,  and  stood 
there.  He  raised  his  eyes  from  her  ankles — which 
were  neatly  turned — to  her  belt,  in  which  she  carried 
a  bunch  of  violets— and  then  to  a  face  that  was  dimly 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  37 

familiar,  brown-eyed,  flushed,  and  greeting  him  with 
a  friendly  smile  that  waited  to  be  remembered.  She 
stood  in  the  sunlight,  her  hands  clasped  behind  her, 
her  eyes  dark  in  the  shadow  of  the  brim  of  her  hat, 
her  teeth  white  in  the  light;  and  the  adorable  dimple 
in  either  cheek  deepened  when  she  saw  that  he  did 
not  recognize  her. 

She  laughed.  A  blind  memory  groped  and  moved 
in  his  brain,  and  a  rush  of  blood  flamed  over  his  face. 
The  dog  was  barking  among  the  trees.  She  turned 
and  called  in  that  direction:  "He  does  n't  remember 
me!" 

He  knew  then.     It  was  "Miss  Margaret!" 

He  started  to  get  up,  catching  at  his  books  as  they 
slipped  from  his  knees,  and  fumbling  for  his  pocket 
as  he  tried  to  put  away  his  lead-pencil.  Remember 
her?  The  realization  that  this  smiling  young  woman 
was  his  "Miss  Margaret"  had  come  on  him  with  such 
a  shock  that  he  did  not  know  what  he  was  about. 
In  a  sort  of  bewildered  double-consciousness,  he 
watched  his  hands  trying  to  pick  up  the  scattered 
volumes.  Miss  Margaret !  And  then  he  came  sud 
denly  into  clear  possession  of  his  senses,  and  stood 
up  with  a  tremulous  smile,  a  book  in  one  hand  and 
his  pencil  in  the  other.  "Yes,  I  do,"  he  said  huskily. 
"You  're  Miss  Margaret," 

"How  did  you  know?"  she  cried,  beaming  on 
him.  "By  the  photograph?  Have  I  changed?" 

The  excitement  in  her  eyes  was  catching.  He  stam 
mered,  with  a  broken  laugh:  "N— no.  You  took  it 
away — the  photograph.  I  have  n't  any." 

"Oh  yes!"     she  recollected.     "I  thought.  .  .     But 


38  DON-A-DREAMS 

why  did  I?"    she  accused  him.     "You  tried  to—" 

"Well,"  he  dared.  "What  did  you  do  to  mine? 
You  tore  it  up— and  threw  it  away." 

"I  did  n't!  Oh!"  She  was  scarlet.  "How  did 
you  find  out?"  The  dog  came  barking  and  jumping 
about  her,  with  Conroy  stumbling  over  him.  "He 
did  n't  remember!"  she  cried.  "How  did  you 
know?  .  .  .  He  has  n't  changed  a  bit.  ..  Is  n't  it 
funny;  he  called  me  'Miss  Margaret'!" 

They  all  talked  together,  raising  their  voices  to 
drown  Dexter 's  yelping.  "It  was  my  plan.  I  wanted 
to  surprise  you."  "I  told  her  we'd  find  you  here." 
"I  almost  called  for  Con  on  my  way  out,  too."  "Is  n't 
it  fun!"  "Quiet,  sir!"  "Just  look  at  him!" 
"Down,  sir!" 

Conroy  caught  the  dog  and  muzzled  it  with  a 
hand;  they  heard  the  shrill  treble  of  their  voices,  un 
supported  by  its  barking;  and  they  stopped,  self- 
conscious.  The  excitement  ceased  as  suddenly  as  it 
had  begun. 

Don  looked  from  Conroy  to  her  with  a  quick  change 
to  bashfulness  that  took  him  in  the  middle  of  a  smile 
and  froze  it.  She  was  "Miss  Margaret"— and  she  was 
not.  "I  did  n't  know  any  other  name,"  he  apologized. 

<  <T » 

"Didn't  you?     Didn't  I  ever  teU  you?" 

"No.    You-" 

' '  Richardson. ' ' 

Miss  Richardson.  It  made  her  a  stranger  to  him. 
He  felt  almost  as  if  they  needed  an  introduction. 
"You  knew  mine?" 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  39 

"Your  cousin  told  me."  They  both  looked  at  Con- 
roy,  and  were  unable  to  get  their  eyes  back  to  each 
other  again.  Conroy  saw  the  situation  and  busied 
himself  with  the  dog,  snapping  his  fingers  at  it,  and 
catching  at  its  ears.  They  struggled  with  an  abashed 
silence  until  Conroy— thinking  loyally  that  they 
would  get  along  better  without  him— said:  "Well, 
I  promised  to  be  back  home  right  away.  .  .  I  guess 
I  better  be  going."  And  in  spite  of  their  confused 
efforts  to  keep  him,  he  did  succeed,  with  the  aid  of 
Dexter,  in  getting  himself  off  the  scene. 

She  looked  around  her.    ' '  What  a  beautiful  place ! ' ' 

He  replied,  lamely:  "Yes,  is  n't  it." 

She  saw  his  books.     "Were  you  studying?" 

He  tried  to  think  of  something  more  to  say  than 
the  bald  affirmative,  and  ended  by  faltering  "N — no." 

She  stooped  down  to  the  Odyssey.  "Is  n't  it 
funny?  What  is  it?" 

"Greek." 

"Really?"  She  sat  down  on  the  grass.  "Is  it— is 
it  as  interesting  as  the  book  you— ' ' 

He  caught  the  picture  that  was  in  her  mind — the 
picture  of  the  two  of  them  with  their  heads  together 
over  the  fairy  tales,  on  his  aunt's  porch  steps — and 
he  laughed.  "No — not  quite  I" 

"What  is  it  like?    What  is  it  all  about?" 

He  came  down  slowly,  on  one  knee  beside  her. 
"It  's— I  can't  read  it  without  a  trans— but  it  's  a  good 
deal  of  a  fairy  tale  too." 

"And  there  are  n't  any  pictures."  She  turned 
over  the  pages,  careful  not  to  look  at  him  for  fear 


40  DON-A-DREAMS 

she  should  make  him  shy  again.  "It  's  like  the  first 
time  I  saw  music — printed  music.  I  wondered  how 
anyone  could  make  .  .  .  music  out  of  it.  I  suppose 
it  's  easy  enough— when  you  know  how— too— Greek." 

Don  laughed  apologetically  as  he  sat  down.  "I 
don't  know.  I  don't  know  how." 

"We  don't  study  it— at  Horton.  German  is  bad 
enough. ' ' 

"Are  you  studying  German?" 

Oh,  she  was  not  studying  much  of  anything— except 
music  and  singing.  And  she  had  worked  so  hard  at 
those  that  her  health  had  broken  down  and  her  mother 
had  taken  her  away  from  the  school.  They  were  in 
town  for  a  month,  on  their  way  to  the  Muskoka 
lakes  where  they  were  to  spend  the  summer. 

She  chattered  nervously  about  herself,  turning  the 
pages  backward  and  forward.  Don  watched  her 
fingers.  He  glanced  shyly  at  the  soft  profile  of  her 
cheek  and  chin,  with  the  dark  eyelash  and  the  dimple 
that  came  and  went  with  her  smile.  He  breathed  a 
faint,  warm  odor  of  violets  that  overbore  the  scent  of 
the  wood  balsam,  every  now  and  then,  with  a  sweet 
suggestion  of  feminine  daintiness  and  charm.  And 
that  perfume  stealing  in  on  him,  and  her  white  hands 
touching  his  old  book,  and  her  voice  voluble  in  friend 
ship,  and  her  smile — they  dazzled,  fascinated  him, 
intoxicated  him,  so  that  his  eyes  burned  on  her,  and 
he  leaned  forward  beside  her,  clasping  his  knees,  to 
see  her  better  under  the  brim  of  her  hat;  and  she 
looked  up,  half -startled,  and  caught  the  boyish  gen 
tleness  and  reverence  that  shone  even  through  his  ar 
dor;  and  she  was  not  afraid.  . 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  41 

She  told  him  of  her  studies  in  the  boarding-school 
for  girls,  in  which  she  was  a  day  scholar;  and  he 
described  his  own  class-room  life.  They  talked  as 
eagerly,  and  listened  as  hungrily,  as  if  the  trivial  ex 
periences  of  their  small  days  were  great  and  moving 
events.  "I  often  wondered  what  you  were  doing," 
she  confessed.  "There  was  a  boy  at  home  reminded 
me  of  you — a  little." 

Don  was  afraid  to  acknowledge  that  he  had  made 
an  imaginary  playmate  of  her ;  indeed,  he  remembered 
it  only  dimly.  "I  did  n't  think  I  'd  ever  see  you 
again,"  he  said.  "I  did  n't  know  where  you  'd  gone." 
The  miracle  of  her  return  came  strong  on  him. 

"You  didn't  forget  me,  though,"  she  said. 

"No." 

"Your  cousin  told  me— how  they  teased  you— 
about  the  photograph." 

He  laughed  with  a  return  of  the  shame  which  that 
teasing  had  taught  him  to  feel  in  remembering  the 
incident.  "We  had  an  awful  fight,"  he  recollected. 

"You  are  good  friends,  now." 

"Yes." 

"He  hurried  me  right  out  here,  as  soon  as  he  knew 
who  I  was."  She  smiled  at  the  thought  of  Conroy's 
delighted  eagerness  to  have  her  meet  Don  again. 
Then  she  leaned  back  against  the  birch,  and  gazed 
happily  at  the  tangle  of  sunlit  green  branches  and 
the  bare,  brown  shadows  underneath.  It  was  just 
such  a  place  as  she  would  have  expected  to  find  the 
little  boy  whom  she  remembered.  And  he  was  the 
same  boy,  though  evidently  his  books  had  taken  the 
place  of  his  make-believes,  and  he  was  more  reserved. 


42  DON-A-DREAMS 

She  liked  him,  and  she  knew  it.  On  her  way  out 
with  Conroy,  she  had  been  wondering  whether  she 
would  like  him.  She  was  glad  that  she  did. 

As  for  Don,  he  had  no  feminine  introspection,  and 
his  happiness  held  him  in  a  dazed  silence.  He  was 
conscious  only  that  a  young  divinity— for  she  was 
already  more  than  a  girl  to  him— had  come  glowing 
and  beautiful  out  of  dreamland,  and  sat  beside  him 
in  an  odor  of  violets,  and  talked  to  him  with  a  musical, 
soft  voice. 

"The  water  sounds  so  pretty,"  she  said. 

He  replied,  musingly:  "I  'd  change  it  for  you,  if 
it  didn't." 

"Why!    How?" 

"It  's  the  stream  running  over  some  big  stones. 
You  can  change  the  sound— by  changing  the  stones." 

"Really?" 

"Would  you  like  to?" 

"Why,  of  course  I" 

The  tiny  waterfall  was  just  below  their  knoll,  at 
the  end  of  a  bright  shallow  where  three  boulders  held 
back  the  bed  of  the  stream  and  dropped  the  current 
brawling  over  their  shoulders  into  a  dark  pool.  Don 
helped  her  down  the  steep  bank  to  the  water 's  edge ; 
and  with  much  excitement  and  more  laughter,  with 
little  cries  of  delight  from  her  and  a  furious  barking 
from  Dexter,  they  loosened  stones  from  the  bank  and 
put  them  where  the  plangent  water  would  strike  and 
curl  about  them;  and  with  every  stone,  sure  enough, 
they  got  a  new  note. 

Then  they  followed  down  the  changes  of  the  stream 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  43 

to  a  green  slope  where,  Don  knew,  the  first  violets 
always  budded;  and  when  he  found  only  leaves  and 
no  blossoms  yet — for,  of  course,  it  was  too  early  in 
the  year — she  took  some  of  the  hot-house  flowers  from 
her  belt,  made  holes  in  the  ground  with  the  pin  of 
her  brooch,  and  stuck  the  stems  in,  playfully. 
"There!"  she  said.  "Now,  you  pick  them." 

He  took  them  out  again,  one  by  one,  careful  not 
to  break  the  delicate  stalks,  and  held  them  out  to  her, 
laughing. 

"Oh,  thank  you."  She  accepted  them  with  a 
sparkling  gravity.  "Are  n't  they  sweet!  May  I  have 
them  all?  Would  n't  you  like  to  keep  some?" 

Don  stammered:  "Ye — e — es." 

"Have  you  a  pin?  No,  I  '11  put  them  in  your 
buttonhole. ' ' 

He  could  not  look  at  her  face;  he  kept  his  eyes  on 
her  frail  wrists  as  she  reached  to  the  lapel  of  his 
coat  and  put  the  violets  in  the  buttonhole  and  patted 
them  into  place.  When  she  stood  back,  a  little  flushed 
at  her  own  daring,  he  raised  his  eyes  to  hers;  and  the 
look  that  passed  between  them  was  as  innocent  as 
affection  and  as  tender  as  a  caress. 

Hours  later,  they  came  loitering  down  the  avenue 
towards  home;  and  they  came  so  slowly  that  Dexter — 
running  ahead  of  them  impatiently,  waiting,  and  then 
running  back — covered  every  foot  of  the  way  again 
and  again.  They  were  still  talking,  but  with  an  easy 
friendliness  now,  and  with  a  confident  meeting  of  their 
glances.  The  sun,  low  in  the  west  behind  them,  slanted 
its  long  rays  on  them  in  a  glory  as  they  came.  The 


44  DON-A-DREAMS 

early  April  breeze,  soft  with  its  first  evening  mist, 
stirred  the  budding  chestnut  branches  over  their  heads, 
with  the  breath  of  a  sigh.  A  robin,  as  fat  as  a  pullet, 
called  to  them  from  a  green  lawn,  as  they  passed,  a 
throaty  promise  of  Spring. 


VI 


DON  had  scarcely  more  than  outgrown  knickerbockers ; 
his  habit  of  solitude  had  kept  him  as  clean-minded' 
as  the  girl  herself;  and  if  it  was  love  that  had  taken 
him,  it  was  a  love  that  desired  only  to  look  at  her 
and  listen  to  her  when  she  was  with  him,  and  to 
dream  of  her  and  wish  for  her  when  she  was  away. 
It  was  a  boy's  love  that  had  no  burning,  a  present 
happiness  that  had  no  doubt  of  the  future  and  no 
guilt  of  the  past.  But  it  filled  his  thoughts  with 
pictures  of  her  that  came  between  him  and  the  pages 
of  his  books;  and  he  ran  from  school  hours  to  her 
like  a  child  to  play. 

He  came  to  the  house  for  her  quite  openly,  until 
she  noticed  some  of  his  school-fellows  grinning  at  him 
across  the  street  as  he  walked  with  her,  and  she  under 
stood  that  they  would  tease  him,  as  they  had  about 
the  photograph.  After  that,  she  agreed  to  meet  him 
at  the  top  of  the  Park,  on  the  road  to  their  ravine. 
She  did  not  let  him  come  out  to  her  of  an  evening, 
because  she  had  heard  his  aunt  say  that  he  must  not 
neglect  his  studies;  and  she  made  him  bring  his  books 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  45 

with  him  when  they  went  on  their  walks.  She  even 
encouraged  him  to  work,  by  making  him  read  his 
translation  aloud  to  her  and  by  pretending  to  be  in 
terested  with  him  in  the  solution  of  his  "deductions." 
And  as  long  as  he  was  with  her,  he  could  work.  It 
was  when  he  was  at  his  desk  in  school,  or  shut  up 
in  his  room  at  home,  that  she  kept  him  idle,  his  eyes 
set  on  the  memory  of  her,  and  his  book  forgotten  in 
his  hand. 

Conroy  accompanied  them  sometimes,  but  not  often. 
He  could  be  with  her  of  an  evening,  when  Don  could 
not;  and  though  there  was  no  rivalry  between  them, 
he  knew  that  Don  would  not  wish  to  share  her,  and 
boyishly  he  held  aloof.  They  went  alone  to  their 
green  alcoves  and  grassed  recesses,  like  a  pair  of  lovers 
in  a  poem,  but  with  a  childish  spirit.  There  were 
blue-birds  to  wonder  at,  the  first  hepaticas  to  find,  a 
water-rat  for  Dexter  to  go  mad  about,  and  the  lurk 
ing  violets,  at  last,  in  a  sudden,  shy  profusion.  Don 
broke  off  the  odorous  branches  of  firs  and  hemlocks 
to  make  a  dry  seat  for  her,  one  day  after  it  had 
rained;  and  then  he  backed  the  seat  with  a  screen  of 
foliage  and  made  her  a  rough  bower.  As  the  weather 
grew  warmer,  she  felt  less  like  romping  along  the 
stream,  and  they  sat  oftener  in  this  arbor;  and  while 
she  listened  dreamily,  with  her  head  against  his  arm, 
he  read  aloud  from  his  Spenser's  "Faerie  Queene." 
Many  of  the  lines  were  printed  in  asterisks,  because — 
Don  explained — the  manuscript  had  been  old  and  torn, 
he  supposed.  But  there  was  much  there  of  knights 
"yclad  in  mighty  arms"  who  rode  through  the  woods 


46  DON-A-DREAMS 

of  Faery  to  slay  monsters  and  rescue  maids;  and  if 
she  sometimes  objected  that  this  was  not  study,  Don 
was  able  to  assure  her  that  Spenser  was  on  his  "Eng 
lish  course";  and  if,  while  he  read,  he  was  the  Red- 
cross  Knight  and  she  Una  "on  her  palfrey  slow,"  he 
did  not  tell  her,  and  she  did  not  guess. 

It  was  all  very  innocent  and  friendly — though  Don 
had  some  bewildering  moments  when  his  heart  seemed 
to  swell  with  a  choked  longing  in  his  chest.  Then, 
two  days  of  wind  and  rain  kept  her  in  the  house,  where 
he  could  only  speak  with  her  under  conditions  of 
strained  formality— for  he  was  at  the  age  when  the 
usages  of  indoors  are  an  oppression  on  the  spirits — 
and  their  return  to  their  haunts  gave  him  the  feeling 
for  her  which  a  bright-colored  toy  had  used  to  raise 
in  him,  a  desire  to  fondle  it  and  rub  it  against  his 
cheek.  When  they  sat  to  rest  on  a  great  pine— one 
that  had  been  brought  down  by  the  wind  in  its 
branches  and  the  rain  in  its  roots— he  put  his  arm 
around  her  to  support  her;  she  was  tired.  He  spread 
her  hand  on  his  knee  and  compared  his  own  brown 
and  ink-stained  fingers  with  hers  that  were  dimpled 
at  the  knuckles  and  pink  in  the  nails;  and  some  older 
instinct  woke  in  him,  and  he  lifted  her  hand  and 
kissed  it.  She  answered  the  caress  with  a  little  pres 
sure,  and  smiled  absent-mindedly,  a  far-away  look  in 
her  eyes. 

"What  '11  you  do  when  I  go  away?"    she  asked. 

His  heart  was  stifling  him.  "I  don't  know.  Are 
you  going  away?" 

"Mother  says  I  must.    She  says  I  don't  look  well." 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  47 

He  drew  her  closer,  and  when  she  turned,  their 
eyes  melted  together  in  a  look.  His  face  drooped 
to  hers.  "No,"  she  whispered.  "Don't  .  .  .  please, 
Don.  I  promised  mother.  She  said  it  was  n't  right." 

He  released  her,  his  lips  trembling,  and  turned 
away.  In  a  moment,  she  put  a  hand  out  and  touched 
his  arm.  "Read  me  something,  Don,"  she  said. 

And  neither  of  them  understood  what  had  happened. 

THEY  did  not  understand  even  when  they  came  to 
say  their  last  good-byes,  on  the  night  before  her  depar 
ture.  It  was  a  Sunday;  she  was  to  go  in  the  early 
morning;  and  all  her  friends  and  her  mother's  had 
called  to  spend  the  evening.  Don  sat  in  an  awkward 
silence,  without  being  able  to  find  a  word  to  say; 
she  followed  him  to  the  porch  when  he  went  out. 
They  shook  hands,  like  their  elders.  "Well,  good 
bye,"  he  said. 

"Good-bye." 

He  waited.     "You  '11  be  back?" 

"Yes,"  she  promised.    "I  '11  be  back." 

"I  '11  wait  for  you."  He  put  on  his  cap,  and  hesi 
tated.  "Will  you  write  to  me?" 

"Oh  yes!    I  '11  write— often. " 

He  went  down  a  step.  "All  right,"  he  said  bravely. 
When  he  reached  the  path,  he  added  "Good-bye." 

She  watched  him  out  to  the  gate.  He  turned  there; 
and  she,  standing  in  the  light  of  the  door,  waved 
her  hand  and  called  "Good-bye." 

They  parted,  as  young  people  do,  hopefully.  The 
future,  they  thought,  was  all  theirs  to  meet  again  in. 


48  DON-A-DREAMS 

HE  woke,  next  morning,  with  a  start,  and  lay  blink 
ing  at  the  warm  May  morning  that  shone  in  his 
window.  What— what  was  it  that  had  happened? 
Miss  Margaret!  She  had— He  groped  under  his  pil 
low  for  his  watch ;  it  was  eight  o  'clock.  She  had  gone. 
Miss  Margaret  had  gone. 

The  light  suddenly  looked  hard  and  cold,  framed 
in  the  sash,  like  a  prison  window.  His  face  went 
blank.  The  day  held  no  promise.  He  lay  back  on  his 
pillow  and  stared  at  the  ceiling. 

It  is  not  in  action  but  in  the  intervals  of  thought 
that  character  grows;  and  for  the  next  few  days,  Don 
went  about  in  a  quiet  muse  that  aged  him  more  than 
he  knew.  He  shunned  the  ravine ;  he  worked  with 
a  sort  of  stupid  diligence;  and  not  until  Saturday 
did  he  even  so  much  as  read  anything  but  a  school- 
book.  But  on  Saturday  morning,  he  took  up  his 
"Faerie  Queene"  again,  and  with  the  first  words  of 
the  poem  a  terrible  longing  gripped  him  at  the  heart. 
He  thrust  the  book  in  his  pocket  and  hurried  out  of 
doors,  his  cap  over  his  eyes,  half -running. 

He  came  breathless  to  the  top  of  the  Park,  to  the 
tree  under -which  she  used  to  meet  him;  and  there 
he  stopped,  and  smiled,  and  drew  a  long  breath. 
When  he  went  on  again,  it  was  very  slowly,  his  head 
a  little  bowed;  and  when  he  came  to  the  narrow  path 
that  led  down  into  the  gully,  he  stepped  back  to  let 
her  go  ahead  of  him,  and  nodded  and  laughed. 

At  midday,  he  came  out  into  the  road  again,  with 
the  same  slow  air.  There  was  no  pathetic  wistful- 
ness  in  his  face.  There  was  something  set  and  blind 
in  his  gaze,  but  there  was  also  a  dreamy  smile.  And 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  49 

in  the  buttonhole  of  his  lapel,  he  had  a  little  bunch 
of  violets. 

A  girlish  letter  from  her  awaited  him  on  his  return 
to  the  house;  but  it  was  as  formal  as  a  schoolroom 
composition,  in  spite  of  its  "Dear  Don"  and  its 
"Your  loving  friend,  Margaret  Richardson."  It  was 
perfumed  faintly,  and  that  made  him  gulp ;  but  when 
he  had  once  put  it  in  the  little  box  in  which  he  kept 
a  dried  starfish  and  a  bit  of  broken  agate  and  some 
other  boyish  treasures,  he  did  not  return  to  it.  His 
cousin  whistled  from  the  lawn  while  he  was  at  dinner ; 
he  pleaded  that  he  had  to  prepare  his  Monday's  les 
sons;  and  as  soon  as  Conroy  had  gone,  he  hurried 
away  to  his  tryst,  with  his  Odyssey  in  his  pocket — 
and  also  a  penknife  with  which  he  was  to  cut  new 
branches  for  her  seat  under  the  firs. 

He  came  like  a  sleep-walker  to  the  fallen  pine  on 
which  they  had  sat  together,  and  he  stopped,  smil 
ing,  as  if  it  were  a  barrier  in  his  way.  Dexter  leaped 
over  it  and  went  on.  He  looked  after  the  dog,  sway 
ing  irresolutely.  Suddenly,  he  sat  down. 

His  face  had  turned  pale.  A  look  of  pain  slowly 
wrinkled  around  his  eyes.  Without  moving  his  head, 
he  lifted  his  hand  to  his  knee,  and  his  fingers  trembled 
and  twitched  in  a  sort  of  empty  groping.  He  turned 
— and  the  blood  rushed  to  his  face,  and  his  eyes  shut, 
and  his  mouth  gasped  open— and  he  slipped  to  his 
knees  on  the  grass  and  sank  down  in  it  with  a  sob. 

And  if  he  did  not  understand  then,  it  was  because 
thp  heart-hunger,  the  ache  of  longing,  the  fever  of 
loneliness  that  seized  and  shook  and  burned  in  him, 
was  like  the  blow  of  a  grief  that  stuns. 


50  DON-A-DREAMS 


VII 


THE  months  that  followed  are  no  more  to  be  de 
scribed  than  the  love-fancies  of  a  girl.  The  boy 
worked  over  his  books  with  a  mind  that  was  in  a  mist, 
and  as  soon  as  he  was  free  of  school  he  went  to  his 
make-believe  meetings  like  an  opium-eater  to  his 
dreams.  Of  what  he  did  there,  of  what  he  thought 
there,  he  wrote  her  not  a  word.  He  filled  his  letters 
with  news  of  the  acquaintances  whom  she  had  left 
in  Coulton— particularly  of  Conroy,  for  whom  she 
inquired.  Her  own  letters  were  made  up  of  apologies 
for  not  being  able  to  write  more  frequently  and  of 
accounts  of  her  boating  and  bathing  and  picnicking 
about  the  lake.  It  was  a  boy  and  girl  correspondence, 
more  idle  than  chatter.  He  told  her  that  Dexter  was 
"not  very  well";  that  the  stream  in  the  ravine  had 
almost  dried  out  to  a  trickle  because  a  farmer  had 
dammed  it  up  to  make  a  pool  for  his  cows;  that  the 
church  had  been  struck  by  lightning;  that  he  was 
writing  on  his  "exams."  She  sent  him  blue-print 
pictures  of  herself  in  a  group  of  cottagers  on  the 
beach.  He  pasted  them  in  an  old  "Composition 
Book"  with  her  letters. 

When  his  examinations  were  finished  and  his 
school  closed,  he  began  to  make  plans.  He  would 
go  up  to  the  University  for  four  years.  Then  he 
would  take  his  course  in  the  law  school  and  accept 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVEE  51 

a  call  to  the  bar.  As  soon  as  he  had  set  up  his  office, 
they  would  be  married.  He  would  work  till  four 
o'clock  every  day  at  his  cases — just  as  he  did  now  at 
school — but  at  four  o'clock  sharp,  he  would  hurry 
home  to  her,  and  they  would  go  for  a  little  walk 
before  supper,  and  after  supper  he  would  read  to  her 
until  it  was  time  for  her  to  go  to  bed.  It  was  to  be 
a  feather  bed,  like  his  mother's.  He  would  kiss  her 
good-night,  there,  before  he  went  upstairs  to  his  attic. 

He  could  no  more  have  told  her  of  all  this  than 
he  could  have  told  Conroy.  But  Dexter  'a  illness 
ended  suddenly— he  was  found  dead  on  the  lawn  one 
August  morning— and  Don  turned  to  her  for  conso 
lation.  His  grief  was  not  as  bitter  as  it  would  have 
been  six  months  earlier,  but  it  left  him  with  a  feeling 
that  he  had  only  her  now.  She  wrote  back,  in  girlish 
sympathy,  that  she  wished  she  were  with  him  in 
Coulton,  or  he  at  the  lake  with  her;  that  none  of  the 
boys  were  as  nice  as  he.  And  Don,  on  the  impulse 
of  loneliness,  shut  himself  up  in  his  room  and  wrote 
his  first  love  letter. 

He  told  her  that  he  was  to  spend  four  years  at 
college,  three  years  at  the  law  school,  and  then  per 
haps  a  year  in  which  to  get  up  a  practice.  (He  had 
heard  his  father  say  it  took  a  long  time  to  work  up 
a  practice.)  He  did  not  wish  to  bind  her— or  any 
thing  like  that— but  if  she  would  just  write  to  him, 
and  let  him  see  her  sometimes,  and  remember  that  he 
was  waiting  for  her,  he  would  not  care  how  long  he 
waited  or  how  hard  he  worked.  He  would  work  so 
hard  that  they  would  be  rich,  and  be  able  to  travel, 


52  DON-A-DREAMS 

and  have  a  cottage  at  the  lake  to  spend  their  sum 
mers  in.  He  would  not  care  if  he  were  never  famous 
—unless,  of  course,  she  wished  him  to  be.  All  he 
wanted  was  to  make  her  happy.  He  felt  he  could 
do  that  because  he— (He  hesitated  a  long  time  over  the 
word;  he  had  never  known  anyone  to  use  it,  outside 
of  a  book.  But  there  was  no  other  word  for  it;  he 
understood  that  women  expected  a  man  to  say  it; 
and  with  a  tremulous  pen  he  wrote  it:)— because  he 
loved  her. 

He  signed  it,  blushing  like  a  girl,  and  then  he 
turned  his  back  on  the  window,  put  his  head  down, 
and  shamefacedly  kissed  the  paper.  He  ran  out  to 
post  it,  so  as  to  have  it  away  from  his  eyes  as  soon 
as  possible ;  and  he  sat  down  to  wait  for  the  reply. 

He  was  still  waiting  when  his  father,  coming  home 
from  his  office  early,  sent  the  maid  upstairs  to  tell 
Don  that  he  was  wanted  in  the  library.  He  went 
downstairs  frightened.  His  father  was  sitting  by  his 
smoking-table  with  a  newspaper  in  his  hand.  "Well," 
he  said,  "you  've  failed  in  your  examinations." 

Don's  first  thought  was  that  it  would  postpone  his 
marriage. 

"Mr.  McCutcheon  tells  me  that  your  work  during 
the  Spring  term  was  uniformly  bad." 

Postpone  his  marriage!  What  would  she  say  to 
that? 

"I  think  I  warned  you  that— what  would  happen 
if  you  continued  to  waste  your  time.  Your  brother 
has  passed  his  examinations  at  the  head  of  his  class." 

To  work  hard !  To  get  rich !  He  had  failed  at  the 
very  beginning! 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  53 

"I  don't  intend  to  sacrifice  his  future  to  yours.  I 
told  you  I  could  not  send  you  both  to  college."  He 
threw  down  the  paper  decisively.  "I  will  get  you 
a  position  down  town — in  a  bank,  if  I  can." 

"But— but,"  Don  stammered. 

His  father  turned  away.  He  was  used  to  court 
room  scenes.  He  was  sorry;  but  he  knew  that  his 
decision  was  wise. 

Don  stood,  stupefied  with  the  horror  of  the  disaster. 
Then  he  ran  for  his  room,  stumbling  up  the  stairs, 
holding  his  breath,  in  a  desperate  attempt  to  get  out 
of  sight  before  he  lost  control  of  himself. 

The  little  room  that  had  hidden  so  many  of  his 
boyish  griefs  sheltered  "this  one  too ;  but  it  was  to  be 
the  last.  For  though  he  cried  like  a  child  for  five 
despairing  minutes,  he  jumped  up,  then,  and  shook 
his  fists  at  the  door,  and  sobbed:  "No!  No,  you 
won't!  .  .  .  No,  you  won't!  No,  you  won't!"  He 
was  engaged  to  be  married;  his  first  duty  was  to  his 
wife.  He  had  promised  her  that  he  would  go  to  col 
lege — and  be  a  lawyer.  His  father  stop  him? 

He  laced  up  his  shoes,  washed  his  face  frantically, 
and  hurried  out.  He  bought  a  newspaper  and  found 
that  he  had  been  "starred"  in  mathematics.  He 
could  write  it  off  in  the  Supplemental  Examination. 
His  father  stop  him? 

He  came  into  his  aunt's  sitting-room— at  the  other 
side  of  the  town — with  his  cap  set  awry  on  his  head, 
pale,  and  with  a  face  that  startled  her.  "Why,  Don!" 
she  said. 

He  took  the  newspaper  from  his  pocket.  "I  've 
failed  in  my  examination — in  mathematics."  His 


54  DON-A-DREAMS 

voice  shook,  but  not  with  tears.  "Father  says  I  can't 
go  to  college.  If  I  promise  to  pay  you  back,  will 
you  lend  me  the  money?" 

"Don!"     She  started  toward  him. 

He  backed  away;  it  was  no  time  for  caresses.  "I 
can  write  off  the  mathematics  at  the  Supplementals. 
I  know  I  can.  I  must— I  must  go."  His  voice  failed 
him. 

"What  a  shame!"  she  cried.  "Oh!  To  do  such  a 
thing!" 

"He  says  he  can't  send  us  both— that  Frankie"-— 

"John!"  she  called  to  her  husband.  "John!" 
He  was  already  at  the  door.  "What  do  you  think? 
Roger— he  has  refused  to  let  Don  go  to  college  now. 
He  says  Frankie—" 

"He  says  he  can't  send  us  both.  He  says 
Frankie— ' ' 

Mr.  McLean  came  slowly  into  the  room.  "Well," 
he  said,  "is  n't  that  like  him?"  He  did  not  love 
the  lawyer. 

"I  failed  in  mathematics.  I  could  write  it  off  in 
September  if  he  'd  let  me.  He— he  says  he  '11  get 
me  a  place  in  a  bank." 

His  uncle  snorted  contemptuously.  "In  a  bank. 
Is  n't  that  like  him?" 

"He  sha'n't  do  it!"  she  cried.  "What  a  shame! 
He  's  always  been  like  this  about  Don.  And 
Frankie—" 

"If  I  could  borrow  the  money,"  Don  pleaded,  his 
under-lip  beginning  to  tremble.  "I— I  could  pay  it 
back." 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  55 

His  uncle  looked  at  him  keenly;  he  swallowed  and 
stood  up  to  it.  "How  much?" 

He  shook  his  head;  he  could  not  trust  his  voice. 

His  uncle  flicked  an  imaginary  speck  of  dust  off 
his  coat  front.  "Hmmm.  Go  ahead  with  your  ex 
aminations."  He  took  off  Don's  cap  for  him,  and 
patted  him  on  the  shoulder.  "Go  ahead  and  do  your 
work."  And  when  Don  had  stammered  through  his 
thanks  and  got  himself  out  of  the  room  again,  his 
uncle  said:  "That— that  brother  of  yours!  What  's 
the  matter  with  him  anyway?  Educate  a  boy  that 
way— and  then  put  him  in  a  bank!  What  use  would 
anything  he  knows  be  in  a  bank?"  He  added,  after 
a  moment's  thought:  "I  '11  send  Conroy  with  him, 
too.  He  can  take  some  special  course.  He  ought  to 
be  allowed  to  see  for  himself  about  how  much  good 
this  college  business  *s." 

They  had  noticed  a  change  in  the  timid  Don;  and 
his  father  also  noticed  it  at  the  evening  meal:  for 
though  Don  did  not  speak,  neither  did  he  sulk ;  he  was 
thoughtful,  without  being  depressed;  and  he  left  the 
table  before  his  father  in  violation  of  the  parental 
rule.  He  said  nothing  of  the  scene  with  his  aunt — 
except  to  his  mother.  Her,  he  told,  dry-eyed  and  res 
olute,  and  she  listened  with  an  invalid's  helplessness, 
and  wept  over  him.  "Your  father  means  it  for  the 
best,  Don, ' '  she  pleaded.  ' '  I  know  he  does.  He  thinks 
you  would  be  better  at  work." 

"I  have  to  go  to  college,"  Don  said;  and  that  was 
all  he  would  say. 

He  went  to  his  room,  and  remained  there,  waiting. 


56  DON-A-DREAMS 

He  was  working  at  his  mathematics  when  his  father 
came  in.  "So  ...  you  have  gone  to  your  uncle  for 
money. ' ' 

Don  answered,  with  his  heart  in  his  mouth:  "I 
have  to  go  to  college.  I  don't  care  how  I  get  there." 
He  did  not  look  up.  He  drew  a  shaking  line  under 
the  problem  he  had  finished,  and  turned  the  page  to 
the  next. 

His  father  took  one  quick  stride  into  the  room— 
and  stopped.  He  had  never  struck  Don  since  that 
24th  of  May.  He  tried  to  be  strictly  just  with  his 
boys,  and  he  expected  to  be  strictly  obeyed.  He  saw 
the  defiance  in  his  son's  face.  "Very  good,"  he  said. 
And  without  another  word,  he  went  out. 

Don  worked  until  midnight.  Then  he  took  her  note 
from  his  breast  pocket,  and  knelt  down  to  his  prayers 
with  it  clasped  in  his  hands.  When  he  went  to  bed, 
it  was  under  his  pillow. 

Two  evenings  later  he  received  a  reply  to  his  love 
letter.  It  was  from  Mrs.  Richardson.  "My  dear 
Donald,"  it  read.  "Margaret,  of  course,  has  shown 
me  your  letter.  You  are  both  too  young  to  think  of 
such  things  for  years  yet.  Certainly  Margaret  is,  and 
I  do  not  wish  her  to  think  of  them  until  she  has 
finished  her  schooling,  at  least,  and  is  old  enough  to 
know  her  own  mind.  You  have  your  studies  to  at 
tend  to,  and  I  do  not  think  that  either  of  you  should 
waste  your  time  in  sentimental  correspondence. 
When  you  have  taken  your  degree— however,  it  is 
better  not  to  think  of  it.  You  are  both  much  too 
young.  I  was  sorry  to  hear  that  your  pretty  dog 


THE  MAKE-BELIEVER  57 

had  died.  Remember  me  to  your  aunt.  I  have  asked 
Margaret  not  to  write.  I  know  you  will  be  a  sensible 
boy  and  understand." 

He  read  it  a  second  time,  with  the  face  of  a  bank 
rupt.  Then  he  put  it  away  quietly,  and  returned  to 
his  mathematics.  At  ten  o'clock,  he  took  it  out  again, 
and  slowly  tore  it  to  pieces,  his  lips  shut  thin  and 
tight. 

And  Donald  was  no  longer  a  boy. 

HE  was  no  longer  a  boy;  and  for  the  time  he  was 
no  longer  a  lover.  It  was  as  if,  having  eaten  a  sickly- 
sweet  Eastern  poison,  he  ftad  come  out  of  dreams  and 
delirium  weak  and  shaken;  and  the  mere  thought  of 
the  girl  gave  him  an  almost  physical  sensation  of 
empty  nausea  that  sent  him,  hungrily,  to  his  work. 
He  avoided  the  books,  the  walks  and  the  associations 
that  might  remind  him  of  her.  He  grappled  with 
his  mathematics  in  a  renewal  of  mind  that  rejoiced 
in  its  own  keenness.  He  avoided  even  solitude— ex 
cept  the  busy  solitude  of  his  studies— and  returned 
to  the  wholesome  companionship  of  his  cousin  with 
out  any  reference  to  what  had  separated  them.  His 
father,  secretly  proud  of  the  unexpected  determina 
tion  and  independence  which  his  son  had  shown, 
watched  him  in  a  silence  that  gave  consent  to  the  boy's 
ambition,  but  held  aloof  in  a  desire  to  confirm  this 
new  strength  of  spirit  by  doing  nothing  to  prop  it. 
It  was  his  mother  who  gave  him  word  that  he 
would  be  allowed  to  go  to  college  and  be  maintained 
there  as  long  as  he  passed  the  examinations  in  his 


58  DON-A-DREAMS 

course.  It  was  she  who  packed  his  trunk— sitting  in 
her  chair  and  wrapping  all  his  things,  needlessly,  in 
tissue  paper  as  white  as  her  own  hands— with  the 
eyes  of  a  mother  who  is  sending  her  boy  into  those 
spiritual  wars  of  the  world  which  have  made  her 
husband  a  stranger  to  her.  And  it  was  she,  unseen, 
who  still  waved  good-bye  to  him  from  the  window 
when  he  turned,  with  Conroy,  at  the  street  corner, 
and  saw  only  the  old  house  standing  there,  strangely 
dead  and  mute,  a  thing  of  the  past  already,  all  the 
glow  of  young  expectation  gone  from  it  into  the  un 
known  scenes  to  which  he  was  hastening. 


PAET  II 
THE  DAY-DREAMER 


THEY  arrived  at  the  college  gates  on  a  late  Sep 
tember  afternoon,  and  stood  to  look  across  the 
green  at  the  "Norman  pile"  which  was  "  'Varsity." 
Its  walls,  romantically  ivied,  rested,  as  if  without  found 
ations,  on  the  perfect  level  of  the  lawn ;  it  was  flanked, 
on  either  wing,  by  large  and  solemn  oaks;  its  towers 
rode  in  an  autumn  sunlight  that  mellowed  them  with 
a  warm  tone— like  an  old  landscape  painter's  trans 
parent  "glaze"— as  if  rich  with  culture  and  ripe  with 
ease;  and  against  the  background  of  the  raw  civiliza 
tion  around  it,  that  artful  imitation  of  an  English 
university  had  the  effect  on  Don  of  the  first  sight  of 
Rome  on  a  pilgrim.     Surprised,  in  a  sort  of  eager 
reverence,  his  lips  parted,  flushed  under  the  eyes,  he 
looked  at  it  as  if  he  were  a  young  novice  come  to 
the  studious  quiet  of  a  cloister.     There  was  suddenly 
something    beautiful    in    his    face,    for    although    his 
cheekbones  were  high  and  his  lips  thin,  he  had  that 
transparent    paleness — as    clear    as    fine    porcelain — 
which  seems  to  light  up  from  within  at  the  first  glow 
of  enthusiasm;   and  his   eyes,   under  a  boyish  wide 
forehead,  were  the  speaking  eyes  of  a  poet. 

His  cousin — browner,  sturdier,  his  feet  firmer  on 
the  ground— looked  the  buildings  over  with  a  shadow 
of  distaste.  For  him,  there  was  something  alien  and 

61 


62  DON-A-DREAMS 

"imported"  in  the  conventional  lawns,  the  perfect 
oaks,  the  carved  and  battlemerited  grey  walls;  and  he 
had  the  same  vague  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  that  was 
to  irritate  him  again  when  he  heard  the  careful 
"English  accent"  of  some  of  his  teachers.  But  while 
he  was  still  looking,  a  "practice  team"  of  young 
athletes  in  the  dirt-brown  costumes  of  the  football 
field  came  running  out  on  the  campus,  "passing"  the 
ball  and  dodging  with  it;  and  Conroy  pricked  up  his 
interest  with  a  quick  change  of  expression.  "Say, 
Don,"  he  said,  "I  '11  bet  that  's  the  Varsity  team. 
They  've  been  training  all  summer." 

Don  nodded,  abstractedly. 

"Come  on,"  Conroy  laughed.  "Let's  'get  into 
this  game.'  ' 

They  were  entered  by  the  Registrar  on  the  rolls 
of  the  University  as  "Donald  Bailey  Gregg,  aged  18, 
Anglican,"  taking  the  course  in  Political  Science  as 
a  preparation  for  the  study  of  the  law,  and  "Conroy 
Gregg  McLean,  aged  19,  Presbyterian,"  a  special 
student  in  Modern  Languages.  In  respectful  silence, 
they  enrolled  with  the  spectacled  professors  whose 
lectures  they  were  to  attend.  They  wandered  through 
the  panelled  corridors  of  the  college  buildings,  walk 
ing  almost  on  tip-toe  in  their  efforts  to  prevent  their 
heels  from  clattering  on  the  hardwood  floors.  They 
found  themselves  a  boarding-house,  and  unpacked 
their  books.  And  Donald  did  all  these  things  almost 
without  emotion,  in  a  sort  of  thoughtful  dulness,  in 
curious,  and  perversely  sad. 

When  his  cousin  went  out,  after  supper,  to  see  the 


THE    DAY-DEEAMEE  63 

town,  he  remained  in  his  room,  like  one  of  those  im 
migrants  who  come  into  the  port  of  their  hopes  in 
high  spirits,  and,  having  looked  over  the  rail  at  the 
strangeness  of  the  land,  retire  below  decks  and  sit 
on  their  trunks,  reluctant  to  go  ashore.  All  the  past, 
which  he  had  put  behind  him  irrevocably,  came  to 
him,  now,  in  a  more  vivid  presence  than  the  present 
itself.  The  strange  room  in  which  he  sat  ''dazing" 
over  his  book— as  Miss  Morris  would  have  said— was 
lost  in  the  shadows  that  hung  around  his  lamp ;  and 
he  was  sitting  in  the  room  in  which  he  had  used  to 
lock  himself  from  Miss  Morris's  persecutions,  the 
room  which  he  had  shared  with  his  imaginary  play 
mate,  the  room  in  which  he  had  read  his  "Faerie 
Queene, "  in  which  he  had  written  his  first  love  letter, 
in  which  he  had  defied  his  father,  in  which  he  had 
planned  his  future  and  thought  to  leave  his  past. 
Celt  that  he  was,  he  sat  there  turning  over  his  recol 
lections  like  the  pages  of  an  old  book,  s.lowly  ideal 
izing  even  his  most  unhappy  experiences  and  seeing 
all  beautiful  through  the  mists  of  regretful  memory. 
And  that  mood  was  to  be  the  dominant  one  of  his 
first  weeks  at  college.  Conroy  was  separated  from 
him  by  the  divergence  of  their  studies,  and  Donald 
avoided  his  new  classmates  as  shyly  as  he  had  his 
old.  They— the  prize  students  of  small  towns,  the 
ambitious  sons  of  poor  farmers— had  come,  by  the 
hundreds,  to  study  for  the  "professions"  at  the  ex 
pense  of  the  government,  with  no  pocket  money  be 
yond  what  paid  their  board,  working  for  "free 
scholarships"  with  the  same  untiring  labor  that  had 


64  DON-A-DREAMS 

made  clearings  in  the  wilderness  and  forced  crops 
from  the  very  stones.  Shiny  at  the  elbows,  clumsy 
in  the  feet,  they  had  as  little  wish  to  cultivate  the 
social  graces  as  he  had  himself;  and,  like  him,  they 
came  from  their  boarding-house  garrets  to  their 
morning  lectures,  and  went  from  the  class  rooms  to 
the  library  and  from  the  library  back  to  the  class 
rooms  diligently  all  day,  and  returned  at  last,  blink 
ing  through  the  twilight  and  loaded  down  with  books, 
to  swallow  a  hasty  supper  and  begin  a  long  evening's 
work  bent  double  over  the  discarded  "parlor"  tables 
that  stood  beside  their  boarding-house  beds. 

Conroy,  of  course,  joined  the  ranks  of  the  more 
leisured  students  who  had  time  for  athletics,  college 
clubs  and  fraternal  societies.  He  became  what  was 
called,  in  the  student  slang,  "a,  sport";  whereas  Don 
was  already  marked  as  one  of  the  "plugs."  The 
sports  had  a  sharp  contempt  for  these  latter — round- 
shouldered  and  bilious  word-grubbers  who  worked 
like  convicts  and  gave  the  university  the  atmosphere 
of  a  penal  institution— and  Conroy  began  to  be 
ashamed  of  his  cousin  when  they  met  on  the  lawns. 
"You  're  getting  to  be  an  awful  fish,"  he  remon 
strated,  one  night  in  their  room.  "A  man  doesn't 
come  to  college  just  for  the  books.  You  ought  to  do 
something  to  keep  up  the— the  college  spirit." 

He,  himself,  had  learned  to  smoke  a  "bulldog" 
briar;  he  wore  a  class  pin  conspicuously  on  the  lapel 
of  his  coat;  he  had  an  inch  of  college  ribbon  sewed 
in  the  band  of  his  hat;  he  had  caught  the  tone  of 
almost  brutal  frankness  which  his  new  companions 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  65 

used  in  their  social  relations  with  one  another.  And 
Don,  looking  up  from  his  work,  saw  anew  the  dis 
tance  that  had  widened  between  them,  and  could  not 
speak  across  it. 

"I  'm  not  plugging,"  he  tried  to  defend  himself. 
"I  'm  reading  outside  of  my  course." 

"Rats!"  Conroy  retorted.  "That  's  what  they  al 
ways  say." 

Don  rearranged  his  books  impatiently.  "That 
cant  about  the  college  spirit  is  a  trifle  stale  itself." 

"Oh,  «s  it?  ...  You  have  a  cheek  to  accuse  me  of 
canting. ' ' 

"You  shouldn't  accuse  me  of  being  a  plug." 

"I  didn't." 

Don's  hand  trembled  as  he  turned  up  his  lamp. 
He  was  not  timid  in  a  quarrel,  but  he  was  afraid  of 
making  a  violent  end  of  this  friendship  that  was  al 
ready  too  weak  to  bear  the  slightest  rupture.  He  did 
not  speak. 

Conroy  turned  his  back  on  the  table  and  stood 
frowning  disgustedly  at  the  shabby  discomfort  of  the 
room.  "We  should  have  gone  into  Residence,"  he 
said,  "instead  of  coming  to  this  hole.  ...  If  I  can 
get  a  room  there,  will  you  come?" 

"I  can't  afford  it.  Can't  you  get  one  of  the  other 
boys  to  take  a  room  with  you?" 

"I  don't  know,"  Conroy  answered.     "I  might." 

He  had,  in  fact,  already  talked  the  matter  over 
with  a  sophomore  who  had  advised  him  to  join  "the 
Residence  gang"  if  he  wished  a  place  on  the  football 
team;  and  Don  guessed  as  much  from  the  tone  in 


66  DON-A-DREAMS 

which  Conroy  had  said  "I  might."  When  his  cousin 
went  out  rather  guiltily,  he  turned,  almost  with 
relief,  to  the  page  of  his  book. 

He  had  come  to  college  with  a  conception  of  the 
universe  which  he  had  formed,  as  a  boy,  in  the  Sab 
bath  school,  accepting  as  literally  true  all  the  symbols 
of  his  religion.  And  the  first  lectures  in  biology  and 
geology  had  come  on  him  like  Miss  Morris's  first 
criticisms  of  his  childish  fancies.  But  now,  instead 
of  an  infantile  resentment  of  change,  he  had  a  young 
man's  eagerness  for  knowledge;  he  did  not  pause  to 
examine  what  he  was  learning;  he  hurried  along, 
blindly,  with  a  pathetic  trust  in  the  guidance  of  his 
teachers,  assured  that  he  was  rising  above  his  boyish 
ignorance  of  Science  to  the  serene  heights  of  wisdom 
and  broad  views  of  life. 

In  the  absorption  of  such  a  progress,  all  his  cousin's 
noisy  claims  on  his  time  were  a  trivial  interruption. 
He  received  calmly  the  news  that  Conroy  had  found 
a  room-mate  in  the  university  Residence.  And  he 
sat  down  alone  to  his  studies,  on  the  night  after  Con 
roy 's  removal,  like  a  philosophic  anchorite  to  his 
meditations. 

He  had  had  two  startling  shocks  within  the  week: 
—one  in  a  biological  lecture  that  had  ended  a  long 
series  of  proofs  of  the  kinship  of  man  with  the  ani 
mals  by  discussing  the  intimate  physiological  relation 
between  man  and  the  anthropoid  apes;  and  the  other 
in  a  geological  lecture  in  which  the  professor,  having 
put  down  the  tooth  of  a  mammoth  and  dusted  the 
black-board  chalk  from  his  hands,  had  announced, 


THE   DAY-DREAMER  67 

smiling:  "We  come,  now,  to  the  first  appearance,  so 
far  as  we  know,  of  an  animal  that  by  reason  of  a 
superior  development  of  its  brain,  was  destined  to 
subjugate  all  the  other  members  of  the  animal  king 
dom—the  animal  which  we  know  as  Man."  And 
Donald  had  been  facing  the  picture  of  his  own  infinite 
littleness  in  the  mighty  scheme  of  a  universe  which 
had  existed  so  many  ages  before  the  first  appearance 
of  that  prehistoric  animal,  the  first  Man,  and  which 
would  exist  when  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  modern 
world  were  fossil  remains  to  an  endless  future  of 
geologists. 

In  his  later  years  he  was  to  consider  that  this  same 
brave  Science  had  once  taught  confidently  that  the 
stars  were  set  in  crystal  spheres  revolving  tunefully 
about  the  earth,  that  it  had  prescribed  dissolved 
pearls  as  a  medicine,  and  believed  the  liver  to  be  the 
seat  of  love.  But  now  he  saw  only  that  his  teachers 
had  led  him  to  confront  a  terrible  query — a  query 
which  for  days  he  had  been  afraid  to  face.  If  it  were 
true  that  Man  was  only  an  animal  of  a  superior 
development  of  br-ain,  and  if  all  animals  died  the 
everlasting  death—? 

In  the  hope  of  finding  an  answer  to  that  query, 
he  had  been  reading  hungrily  and  in  the  large.  Now 
he  was  gulping  the  conclusions  of  a  materialist  who 
had  just  said  the  last  word  on  Science  and  Immor 
tality  ;  and  the  book  had  led  him  to  the  plain  edge 
of  the  depths  for  which  he  had  hoped  it  would  find 
him  a  bridge— and  had  left  him  standing  there. 

When  he  looked  up  from  the  final  page  of  the  vol- 


68  DON-A-DREAMS 

ume,  he  felt  lonely.  He  missed  his  cousin  from  the 
room. 

He  rose  from  his  chair  and  began  to  pace  up  and 
down  with  a  frightened  restlessness.  He  halted, 
staring  at  the  cheerful  glow  of  his  "student"  lamp, 
and  finding  it,  in  some  strange  way,  a  tragically  small 
light  in  the  vast  darkness  of  the  night.  He  turned 
with  a  quiver,  struck  cold  again  by  the  thought  that 
was  crouching,  like  a  terror,  in  his  brain.  If  it  were 
true  that  death—? 

Suddenly,  he  smiled — the  ghastly  smile  of  a  man 
trying  to  deride  his  fear.  It  was  impossible  that  all 
this  immense  activity  of  civilization — all  this  labor 
and  art  and  learning,  all  this  doing  and  suffering,  all 
this  loving  and  nobility,  praying  and  aspiring  of  man 
— was  the  chattering  business  of  a  world  of  untailed 
apes.  God  would  not— 

His  smile  set  on  his  mouth  in  a  fixed  grimace  in 
which  there  was  no  mirth.  His  eyes  slowly  narrowed 
and  shut  as  if  he  had  been  stricken  with  a  pain  in 
the  temples.  He  jerked  back  his  head,  and  threw  his 
hands  up  to  his  face. 

When  the  stroke  had  passed,  he  was  on  his  knees 
beside  his  bed,  praying— praying  with  the  fervor  of 
a  condemned  man  who  has  suddenly  realized  the 
whole  meaning  of  the  sentence  of  death,  praying  with 
the  increasing  feverishness  of  doubt,  praying  against 
the  thought  that  his  prayers  were  addressed  to  the 
deaf  heaven  of  Science  that  is  hung  with  barren  stars 
and  the  cold  night  of  endless  emptiness.  He  stopped 
and  looked  up,  his  jaw  fallen,  as  if  listening  to  the 


THE    DAY-DEEAMER  69 

echo  of  his  own  whisper  on  the  dead  silences,  his  eyes 
fixed  in  a  frightened  despair — for  it  seemed  to  him, 
now,  in  his  newly  critical  view  of  his  faith,  that  he 
had  been  believing  in  another  Santa  Glaus. 


II 


THESE  are  the  commonplaces  of  young  experience,  the 
growing  pains  of  any  spiritual  development;  but 
they  came  on  Don  with  a  sudden  violence  that  gave 
them  a  staggering  weight.  He  was  away  from  home: 
that  is  to  say,  he  was  away  from  the  comfortable  out 
look  on  life  which  a  man  gets  from  the  very  per 
manence  of  familiar  surroundings;  he  was  facing  the 
powers  of  life  and  death,  alone  and  in  the  open;  he 
was  the  more  conscious  of  his  own  weakness,  more 
exposed  to  the  assault  of  doubt,  and  perhaps 
more  inclined  to  be  contemptuous  of  the  fireside 
religions.  He  had  been  raised  in  those  sheltered  be 
liefs  which  are,  in  a  way,  feminine  and  sentimental; 
he  had  been,  for  the  past  few  months,  thrown  upon 
his  own  unmothered  masculinity  in  a  world  that  de 
spised  the  gentle  moralities  which  it  preached  on  one 
day  in  seven;  and  his  mind  had  changed  more  than 
he  had  been  aware. 

When  he  woke  next  morning,  it  was  to  a  dull  ac 
ceptance  of  that  loss  which  had  come  upon  him,  the 
previous  night,  in  such  a  frantic  revolt  against 
bereavement.  He  looked  out  his  window  on  the  first 


70  DON-A-DREAMS 

soft  fall  of  snow,  and  remembered  that  it  was  Satur 
day.  His  studies  lay  around  him,  dead  of  interest, 
like  the  ruins  of  an  avocation.  He  went  downstairs, 
listlessly,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  ate  his  break 
fast  with  the  mechanical  appetite  which  follows  a 
stress  of  emotion.  And  then  he  muffled  himself  up 
in  his  overcoat  and  winter  gloves,  and  with  his  head 
bent  against  a  mild  wind  he  began  to  walk. 

He  had  intended  to  walk  in  a  comfortable  daze, 
quite  thoughtless,  with  the  snow-flakes  clogging  his 
eyelashes  and  the  wind  crooning  in  his  ears.  But  his 
mind  was  unusually  alert,  his  observation  greedy  of 
every  sight  he  passed;  and  when  he  came  to  the  main 
business  street  of  the  town — turning  northward  in  an 
unconscious  habit  of  direction — he  saw  the  life  around 
him  with  an  involuntary  wonderment,  as  if  it  were 
suddenly  new  to  him;  and  he  watched  the  actions  of 
the  men  and  women  on  the  sidewalks  and  in  the  shops 
as  if  they  had  been  a  race  of  animals  whose  cheerful 
acceptance  of  a  brief  and  tragic  lot  was  an  inexplic 
able  mystery  to  him.  He  saw  them  even  with  pity  as 
they  smiled  and  nodded  and  chattered  to  one  another 
—with  the  pity  which  one  would  feel  for  the  play 
fulness  of  a  butcher's  animals;  and  he  did  not  at  all 
confound  himself  in  their  fate,  but  walked  among 
them  as  unconsciously  self-superior  as  a  philosopher 
who  has  just  proved  the  nothingness  of  all  things,  and 
who  feels  the  personal  importance  of  his  triumphant 
intellectuality  and  the  great  distinction  of  his  act. 

The  feeling  raised  him  to  a  lonely  isolation,  and  as 
he  neared  the  quieter  suburbs  he  was  reminded  of 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  71 

the  streets  of  Coulton  and  of  the  companion  who  had 
used  to  join  him  at  the  top  of  the  Park.  Nor  was 
it  so  much  of  a  reminding— for,  of  course,  she  had 
been  dwelling  in  the  painful  background  of  his  mind 
at  all  times.  It  was  a  sudden  leaping  of  her  image 
into  the  vacant  interest  which  his  studies  had  been 
occupying,  a  weaker  yielding  to  the  thoughts  which 
he  had  kept  resolutely  out  of  his  busy  days.  And 
he  did  not  think  of  her  with  pity,  as  he  did  of  these 
others.  The  mood  is  likely  to  be  over-expressed  in  any 
words:  but  she  took  her  place  beside  his  own  concep 
tion  of  himself  and  companioned  him  among  these  sha 
dows  of  men  and  women  like  an  immortal  walking 
with  him  in  a  futile  and  passing  world. 

He  began  to  chat  with  her,  in  an  imaginary  con 
versation,  at  first  rather  sadly,  but  without  any  refer 
ence  to  the  cause  of  his  tragic  manner,  for  he  had 
the  same  instinct  to  shield  her  from  his  doubts  as  he 
had  had  to  protect  Frankie  from  the  discovery  that 
Santa  Glaus  was  a  myth.  She  asked  him  about  his 
studies,  about  Conroy,  about  the  life  at  college;  and 
her  questions  were  as  unexpected  as  the  conversation 
which  one  carries  on  in  dreams.  He  saw  her  down 
ward  smile,  the  eyelash  on  her  cheek,  the  quick  side 
glance  which  she  raised  to  him,  rather  shyly  because 
of  their  long  separation;  and  he  looked  down  to  see 
whether  she  wore  her  rubbers  in  the  snow,  and,  while 
he  replied  to  her,  he  watched  her  little  feet  appearing 
and  disappearing  below  the  hem  of  her  skirt.  The 
pleasure  which  he  took  out  of  it  all  was  a  thing  not 
to  be  described.  On  top  of  his  lonely  misery,  it  was 


72  DON-A-DREAMS 

more  real  than  any  real  joy  could  possibly  have  been, 
since  it  was  outside  of  all  halting  actuality,  purely 
ideal.  , 

He  turned  with  her  into  an  open  road  that  led  up 
the  side  of  a  hill;  and  they  stopped  at  the  top  of  it 
to  look  back  at  the  town,  where  it  lay  in  the  cup  of  a 
valley,  facing  the  lake.  He  explained  to  her  that, 
according  to  the  geologists,  this  range  of  hills  had 
been  the  shore-line  in  the  "glacial  period";  she 
wished  that  she  had  studied  geology;  he  shook  his 
head  sadly.  In  order  the  better  to  see,  they  climbed 
the  bank  that  edged  the  road,  and  stood  together  un 
der  a  huge  bare  elm  that  raised  above  them  its  inter- 
weaved  branches,  fantastically  touched  with  snow. 
He  brushed  off  a  great  root  that  writhed  up  from 
the  frozen  ground;  and  they  sat  down  on  it  to  look 
over  the  city. 

He  was  still  sitting  there  when  the  sun  came  out, 
and  he  was  smiling,  with  a  rapt  expression,  at  the 
horizon.  She  had  her  hands  in  a  fur  muff  on  her 
knees,  and  her  cheeks  were  rosy  with  the  wind.  With 
out  turning,  he  saw  her  so;  and  he  listened  to  her 
with  the  face  of  a  lover.  Below  him  were  all  the 
houses  of  the  town,  and  they  had  suddenly  become  the 
nests  which  love  had  built  for  its  shelter.  All  the 
business  of  those  streets — which  had  an  hour  before 
seemed  so  inexplicable  to  him — was  now  the  joyful 
activity  of  men  who  were  working  to  bring  home  the 
daily  bread  to  their  mates.  All  the  misery  and  the 
sin  of  that  city  were  the  absence,  the  debasing,  the 
denial  of  love.  Geology,  history— all  the  parched  and 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  73 

sterile  sciences  of  the  lecture  room — were  a  study  of 
the  dry  bones  and  fossils  of  a  life  from  which  love 
had  departed.  Beauty  was  the  face  of  Love;  Truth 
was  the  voice  of  Love.  God  Himself— and  it  came 
to  him  as  a  hope  which  he  seized  upon  as  a  discovery 
— was  the  divine  principle  of  Love  which  gave  a 
meaning  to  the  universe. 

"Aren't  your  hands  cold?"     she  asked. 

"Not  very." 

"Put  one  in  here,"  she  said,  and  moved  her  muff 
across  her  knees  to  him. 

He  touched  her  gloved  fingers  in  that  warm  nest 
of  fur.  She  smiled.  The  sunlight  swam  with  a  sud 
den  glory  of  light  in  the  moist  happiness  that  clouded 
his  eyes.  And  Don-a-Dreams  had  found  himself 
again  in  the  love  dream  of  youth  and  the  poets. 

SHE  had  come — like  the  imaginary  playmate  who 
had  consoled  him  for  the  loss  of  his  picnic  on  the 
24th  of  May— to  companion  him  in  a  world  that  had 
grown  to  be  a  place  of  doubt  and  terror  to  him;  and 
she  kept  him  from  the  thought  of  a  darkness  which 
he  dared  not  think  of.  But  he  did  not  allow  her  to 
make  any  change  in  the  outward  manner  of  his  days. 
As  if  he  had  been  a  criminal  or  a  conspirator  with 
some  secret  double  life  to  conceal,  he  even  frequented 
more  than  usual  any  crowded  assemblies  of  the  stu 
dents,  and  watchfully  applauded  at  the  meetings  of 
the  debating  society,  and  cheered  the  assaults  at  arms 
in  the  gymnasium,  and  listened  with  a  diligent  pre 
tence  of  absorption  in  the  lecture  rooms.  Not  that 


74  DON-A-DREAMS 

he  did  any  of  these  things  consciously,  or  by  plan; 
it  was  instinctive  with  him  to  conceal  the  thought  of 
this  presence  that  hung  around  him  like  a  ghost;  and 
the  instinct  made  him  show  an  open  interest  in  life 
and  his  acquaintances,  at  the  same  time  that  it  made 
it  impossible  for  him  to  come  to  terms  of  intimacy 
with  any  friends.  He  spent  an  occasional  evening 
with  Conroy  in  his  room  at  Residence,  and  he 
listened  silently,  but  with  a  smile,  to  the  conversation 
of  Conroy 's  new  friends;  and  he  was  as  nearly  as 
possible  unnoticed  by  them  there.  He  particularly 
absented  himself  from  the  college  "socials"  in  which 
young  women  participated;  he  studied  less  in  the 
library,  and  took  fewer  books  to  his  room  at  night. 
For  the  rest,  he  usually  walked  out  for  an  hour  before 
going  to  bed;  and  he  invariably  spent  his  Saturdays 
and  his  Sundays  on  the  country  roads  or  in  that  net 
work  of  ravines  and  river  bottoms  which  holds  back 
the  northeastern  suburbs  of  the  city. 

It  was  on  one  of  these  night  walks — a  frozen  Decem 
ber  night — that  Conroy,  on  his  way  home  from  the 
theater,  saw  Don  ahead  of  him  sauntering  up  the  line 
of  dark  shop-windows  towards  his  boarding-house— 
and  stopped  him  with  an  over-eager  hail  of  greeting. 
Since  their  separation,  Conroy  had  had  a  guilty  feel 
ing  that  he  had  deserted  an  old  friend  treasonably; 
he  had  explained  the  incident,  in  a  letter  to  his  mother, 
as  due  to  Don's  inability  to  pay  for  anything  better 
than  a  "beastly  uncomfortable"  boarding-house  room 
in  which  it  was  unhealthful  to  live;  and  his  mother 
had  tactfully  persuaded  Don  to  accept  an  extra  al- 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  75 

lowance  from  her  on  the  easy  condition  that  he  should 
pay  it  back  when  he  was  able.  Conroy  was  curious 
to  know  what  his  cousin  was  doing  with  his  money — 
for  he  was  obviously  not  spending  it. 

Don  had  started  at  his  cousin's  cheery  shout,  and 
jerked  his  hand  out  of  the  bosom  of  his  coat,  and  let 
his  arm— that  had  been  crooked— swing  ostentatiously 
at  his  side.  He  met  Conroy  with  a  curious  expression 
which  puzzled  the  boy.  "What  're  you  doing  down 
here,  anyway,  Don?"  he  asked. 

"Taking  a  walk.     What  're  you?" 

Conroy  replied  that  he  had  been  at  the  theater,  but 
he  ended  the  explanation  with  a  return  to  his  curi 
osity  regarding  Don.  "Working  pretty  hard?" 

"Oh  yes,"  Don  laughed.  "Plugging  as  hard  as 
ever. ' ' 

That  reference  to  the  unmentioned  cause  of  their 
separation  silenced  Conroy.  They  walked  along  with 
out  a  word,  crunching  the  snow  under  their  heels. 
Suddenly  Conroy  asked :  ' '  Do  you  ever  hear  from  her, 
now?" 

Don  turned,  with  a  startled  "Who?" 

"Margaret— Miss  Richardson." 

"What  made  you  ask  that?" 

There  was  again,  in  his  face,  that  faint  suggestion 
of  guilty  confusion  which  Conroy  had  noticed  when 
they  met.  "I  don't  know,"  the  cousin  answered, 
embarrassed.  "I  'd  seen  so  little  of  you  lately.  I 
thought  that,  perhaps — Jessie  wrote  me  the  other  day 
that  she  'd  heard  she  was  coming  here,  after  Christ 
mas,  to  study  music  at  the  Conservatory." 


76  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Who?" 

"Miss  Richardson." 

"Coming  here?" 

"Yes.     To  the  Conservatory." 

After  an  interval  of  thought,  Don  said:  "Oh!  I 
hadn't  heard." 

When  they  separated  at  a  street  corner,  Don  thrust 
both  hands  deep  in  his  overcoat  pockets  and  paced 
along  alone  in  a  slow  absorption  of  thought;  and 
when  he  came  to  the  door  of  the  boarding-house,  he 
let  himself  in  without  any  smiling  pause  for  parting 
on  the  threshold. 

She  was  coming  back.  His  "imaginary  playmate" 
was  "coming  true"  again.  The  news  had  brought 
him  down  to  real  life  with  the  bewildering  shock  of 
a  sudden  awakening. 


Ill 


THERE  intervened  his  Christmas  holiday  at  home— a 
momentous  holiday;  for  after  the  first  rush  of  greet 
ings,  he  found  himself  standing  before  Frankie  and 
his  sister  and  even  his  mother  herself,  a  stranger  in 
a  life  from  which  he  had  grown  away ;  and  the  inevit 
able  readjustment  began  at  once  almost  with  pain. 
Of  them  all,  his  mother  had  clung  most  closely  to  his 
thoughts,  from  the  day  he  had  opened  his  trunk — and 
found  his  handkerchiefs  so  fondly  packed  in  tissue 
papers  tied  with  ribbons — to  the  day  he  had  received 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  77 

her  little  hoard  of  Christmas  savings  with  a  request 
that  he  buy  this  for  Frank  and  that  for  Mary  and 
a  dozen  other  gifts  and  remembrances  for  his  cousins 
and  his  aunt.  Her  letters  to  him  had  been  full  of 
news  and  comment— the  letters  of  a  woman  who 
looked  on  life  from  the  windows  of  her  sick  room 
with  a  spectator's  interest  and  sympathy.  He  had 
felt  her  watching  him  in  all  his  absence.  He  had  seen 
her  sitting  over  her  needlework,  thinking  of  him. 
And  he  had  come  to  her,  now,  with  a  heart  full  of 
affection. 

But  when  he  sat  down  opposite  her  chair,  still  smil 
ing  and  blushing  awkwardly  from  the  caress  of  wel 
come,  he  found  himself  facing  the  loving  scrutiny 
of  her  gaze;  and  he  looked  away  quickly,  conscious 
of  the  change  in  himself,  his  beliefs,  his  outlook  on 
life,  his  hidden  thoughts  and  the  growth  of  experi 
ences  in  which  she  had  had  no  part.  It  seemed,  to 
him  that  she  would  penetrate  the  secret  behind  his 
eyes  if  she  saw  into  them  clearly.  And  this  very 
attempt  of  concealment  betrayed  him  to  her.  With 
a  mother's  quick  suspicion,  she  began  to  seek  him  out, 
with  those  apparently  trivial  questions  which  are  like 
the  tappings  of  a  tiny  hammer  on  the  suspected  pan 
els  of  a  wainscoating. 

They  found  him  by  the  silences  with  which  he  tried 
to  cover  his  boy's  secrets.  It  took  her  days  to  do  it; 
but  in  the  long  talks  which  they  had  together  in  her 
room— sitting  with  the  winter  sunlight  on  the  lace 
curtains  and  her  needle  busy  in  the  embroidery  with 
which  she  occupied  her  wasted  hands— she  probed 


78  DON-A-DREAMS 

him  unerringly  because  of  the  very  acuteness  of  her 
sympathy  and  the  anxiety  of  her  love.  Concerning 
the  girl— whoever  it  might  be— she  had  no  fear. 
She  trusted  the  innocence  of  his  youth.  But  it  was 
this  very  innocence  that  she  feared  in  the  matter  of 
his  religion;  and  when  to  a  pointed  question  of  his 
belief,  he  replied  desperately:  "I  'd — I  'd  rather  not 
discuss  it, ' '  the  thought  of  her  boy  tempted  and  miser 
able  kept  her  awake  all  night. 

She  felt  that  he  needed  a  father's  guidance.  He 
was  almost  a  man,  now,  and  it  must  be  that  a  man 
would  understand  him.  When  he  stood  before  her, 
tall  and  quiet — as  if  thoughtful  with  his  experience 
of  that  outer  world  from  which  he  came  into  her  four- 
walled  prison  of  sickness — she  was  so  conscious  of  his 
new  manliness  that  she  looked  up  to  him  almost  as 
she  looked  up  to  her  husband.  They  were  of  the  same 
world  and  the  same  sex.  Perhaps  the  father  could 
help  the  son. 

That  she  could  have  thought  of  such  a  plan  showed 
how  little  she  understood  the  silent  lawyer.  But  she 
knew  that  he  was  constant  in  his  attendance  at  church, 
that  he  took  up  the  collection  at  the  morning  service, 
that  he  had  been  employed  in  legal  matters  by  the 
bishop,  that  he  was  a  trustee  of  the  new  hospital 
which  had  just  been  built  by  the  Anglicans  of  the 
town.  He  never  spoke  of  religion  to  her,  but  he  never 
spoke  of  politics  either,  or  indeed  of  any  of  the  inter 
ests  that  kept  him  busy  all  day. 

She  put  the  case  to  him  in  timid  hints  and  queries: 
Had  Don  acted  strangely  in  church?  Had  he  spoken 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  79 

of  his  beliefs  at  all?  She  had  heard  that  the  uni 
versity  education  had  a  tendency  to  make  boys  irre 
ligious.  Oh,  Don  had  not  said  anything,  but  she  was 
afraid  that  there  was  something  wrong.  She  had  not 
felt  able— would  he  speak  to  Don? 

He  would.    And  he  did. 

He  did  it  with  the  cleverness  of  a  mind  skilled  in  be 
traying  witnesses  into  admissions  which  they  did  not 
wish  to  make— betraying  them  not  by  brow-beating 
and  bewildering  them  with  questions,  but  by  an  in 
sinuating  friendliness  and  a  flattering  attention  to 
their  involved  replies.  He  began  by  congratulating 
Don  on  his  attendance  at  church— (whither  the  boy 
had  gone  because  he  knew  that  to  remain  away  would 
be  to  give  his  mother  pain.)  So  many  Universitiy 
men,  Mr.  Gregg  had  noticed,  made  a  license  of  their 
college  liberty  in  order  to  escape  their  church  duties. 
It  was  a  great  mistake— a  mistake  which  they  always 
regretted  later  in  life.  A  man  depended  on  his  fel 
low-men  for  a  living  in  the  organized  union  which  we 
call  society ;  and  the  church  was  an  organization  within 
the  larger  body,  an  organization  primarily  for  worship 
on  the  lines  of  a  common  belief— 

"But,"  Don  interrupted,  feeling  the  intolerable 
hypocrisy  of  his  silence,  "there  are  things  one  can't 
believe  in." 

"Certainly,"  his  father  assented,  with  no  change 
of  voice.  "There  are  government  policies  that  I  do 
not  believe  in,  but  I  do  not  therefore  revolt  against 
the  will  of  the  majority.  A  man  may  not  believe  in 
capital  punishment,  but  he  need  not  break  open  the 


80  DON-A-DREAMS 

jails  to  release  murderers.  Church  membership,  for 
a  lawyer  particularly — " 

He  stopped  to  raise  his  hat  to  a  fellow  church-mem 
ber  and  his  wife;  and  Don,  looking  down  at  the  pow 
dered  snow  which  he  threw  up  with  an  impatient 
shuffle  of  the  foot,  put  in  quickly:  "I  don't  think 
I  'm— law  doesn't  appeal  to  me." 

His  father  asked  mildly:  "What  do  you  intend  to 
do?" 

' '  I  don 't  know.    I  thought— ' ' 

"Yes?" 

"I  thought  that  the  university  education  alone — " 

"Along  what  lines?" 

"I— I  hadn't  decided." 

They  were  at  their  gate.  Mr.  Gregg  paused  with 
his  hand  on  it  and  gave  Don  a  stern  face  and  a  sudden 
change  of  tone.  "If  you  are  not  going  to  study  law, 
you  must  decide  what  you  are  going  to  study.  We 
will  talk  this  over  to-night."  * 

Don  followed  him  up  the  path  like  a  boy  led  to 
chastisement.  And  as  long  as  his  father  was  visibly 
before  him— tall  and  grave  and  authoritative— the 
son's  young  habit  of  respect  and  obedience  kept  his 
thought  cowed.  But  as  soon  as  the  mid-day  dinner 
had  ended  and  Don  had  shut  himself  in  his  room, 
shame  and  resentment  rose  in  him  in  a  dangerous 
revolt.  He  had  been  tricked ;  that  sudden  change  from 
suavity  to  sternness  had  been  the  springing  of  the 
trap;  the  man  had  played  on  him  with  hypocrisy. 
And  for  the  instant  Don  despised  him. 

More  than  that:  in  his  absence  at  college,  Don  had 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  81 

come  to  see  his  father  as  he  saw  other  men,  not  as 
a  superior  creature  to  be  looked  up  to  with  awe,  but 
as  a  human  animal— like  himself —grown  old  and  hard 
and  mechanical— though  he  had  once  been  young  and 
had  known  the  enthusiasm  of  love  and  marriage — 
cleverly  using  his  brain  to  support  his  wife  and  fam 
ily,  and  pathetically  nearing  the  obscurity  of  his 
grave.  He  saw  him,  if  not  with  strong  affection,  at 
least  with  pity  and  respect,  as  a  man  who  had  made 
the  best  of  an  undistinguished  success  in  law  and  who 
lived  without  vices.  And  if  he  saw  no  more  in  him 
than  this,  it  was  because  the  father— living  up  to  that 
stern  ideal  of  British  parents  which  the  race  has 
brought  to  Canada— had  never  tried  to  make  himself 
beloved  by  his  sons  but  only  respected  and  obeyed. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  Don,  as  he  went  downstairs 
to  that  night's  interview,  went  with  any  respect  for 
the  man  he  was  to  face.  Certainly,  he  did  not  intend 
to  obey  him.  Their  short  colloquy  on  the  way  home 
from  church  had  been  to  the  boy  a  brief  and  mislead 
ing  glimpse  into  his  father's  mind;  and  he  had  con 
structed  a  whole  life  of  politic  hypocrisy  from  the 
lawyer's  confession  of  faith  in  the  worldly  advantages 
of  church  membership.  He  did  not  suspect  that  his 
father  had  been  through  a  struggle  with  these  same 
doubts  which  now  assailed  himself;  that  he  had  ar 
rived  at  a  working  compromise  with  them  and  made 
a  peace;  that  he  had  preserved  the  integrity  of  his 
own  mind  without  resisting  the  police  of  organized 
religion.  Still  less  did  Don  suspect  that  the  older 
man,  remembering  his  own  youth,  felt  a  reluctant 


82  DON-A-DREAMS 

sympathy  for  this  beginner  in  life  with  all  the  prob 
lems  of  his  world  thick  about  him.  Don  saw  his 
father,  merely,  as  a  lawyer  whose  practice  in  the 
courts  had  dulled  his  sense  of  truth  and  justice  and 
the  ideals  behind  the  statutes  and  had  left  him  only 
the  lesson  of  conformity  which  is  so  often  the  essence 
of  the  law  to  the  priest  and  the  practitioner. 

It  gave  the  boy  new  cause  to  hate  the  profession. 
His  mind,  at  college,  had  turned  from  the  thought 
of  it  with  distaste,  and  rose  against  it — now  that  it 
was  to  be  forced  on  him — with  an  almost  desperate 
repulsion.  His  aunt's  allowance,  added  to  the  money 
which  he  had  saved  from  his  small  expenses,  at  college, 
would  put  him  through  whatever  "course"  he 
chose  to  take.  He  would  not  quarrel  with  his  father, 
but  he  would  not  submit  to  him. 

He  entered  the  "study"  with  a  volume  which  he 
pretended  he  had  come  to  return  to  its  shelf.  He 
found  his  father  walking  up  and  down  the  room,  smok 
ing  a  curved  pipe.  A  gas  lamp,  with  a  frosted  shade, 
lit  a  precise  arrangement  of  books  and  papers  on  the 
table.  Don  walked  past  them  almost  defiantly,  and 
turned  his  back  from  the  bookcase. 

Mr.  Gregg  said  abruptly:  "I  judge  from  your  col 
lege  'Calender'  that  your  Political  Science  course 
does  not  really  begin  until  your  second  year.  Is  that 
correct  ? ' ' 

Don  answered,  without  turning:  "Yes,  sir." 

Mr.  Gregg  cleared  his  throat.  "You  have  until 
then  to  make  up  your  mind  what  you  are  going  to  do. ' ' 

Don  waited,  shutting  the  glass  doors  of  the  book- 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  83 

case  slowly.  When  he  turned  around,  his  father  had 
sat  down  in  his  easy  chair  and  taken  up  his  book. 
Don  understood  that  judgment  had  been  rendered, 
and  started  awkwardly  toward  the  door.  It  seemed 
a  great  distance  across  the  room.  He  had  his  hand 
on  the  door-knob  when  his  father  added:  "Meanwhile, 
for  your  mother's  sake  if  not  for  your  own,  you  will 
go  to  church  and  try  to  behave  yourself." 

Don  got  himself  out,  in  silence,  with  his  ears  burn 
ing.  As  he  closed  the  door  behind  him,  he  heard  his 
father  strike  a  match. 

Crestfallen,  dismissed  with  all  his  heroic  insubor 
dination  unnoticed,  he  went  upstairs  ashamed  of  him 
self,  and— in  spite  of  himself— admiring  the  strength 
that  had  taken  him  up,  considered  him  briefly,  given 
him  a  curt  decision,  and  then  turned  to  other  mat 
ters  with  the  calm  re-lighting  of  a  pipe.  For  a  moment, 
he  doubted  whether  this  old  brain  might  not  know 
what  was  best  for  him  to  do;  whether  he  would  not 
be  wise  to  study  law  and  be  at  peace  with  his  father. 
But  it  was  only  for  a  moment.  Law  was  to  him  a 
dead  and  dried  collection  of  classified  statutes,  printed 
in  old  books,  in  a  formal  jargon  as  repellent  as  the 
scientific  names  on  a  museum  of  beetles.  Life  as  a 
lawyer  would  be  life  in  a  musty  library  with  a  con 
tinual  droning  of  court  arguments  coming  to  him 
through  green  baize  doors,  and  all  the  sunlight  and 
freedom  of  love  and  happiness  beating  on  the  closed 
windows  that  shut  him  in.  He  shook  his  head,  draw 
ing  a  long  breath  of  relief.  He  was  free.  He  had 
five  months  in  which  to  choose  a  career.  All  the 


84  DON-A-DREAMS 

world  was  before  him,  like  a  garden  full  of  inviting 
paths;  and  somewhere  in  the  center  of  it,  in  a  secret 
green  recess,  she  sat  waiting,  with  a  bunch  of  violets 
gathered  for  him  in  her  hand,  and  a  girlish  smile  of 
welcome  trembling  in  a  sort  of  timorous  expectation 
on  her  lips. 

THAT  thought  filled  his  last  week  at  home  with  a 
restless  impatience.  It  was  as  if  he  were  about  to 
start  on  a  tour  of  the  world,  and  had  a  week  to  wait 
for  his  date  of  sailing.  He  chafed  under  the  enforced 
inaction  of  the  long  sittings  with  his  mother,  looking 
wistfully  out  of  the  window,  until  she  silently  re 
proved  herself  for  keeping  him  too  much  indoors  and 
unselfishly  let  him  go.  (He  had  said  nothing  of  his 
interview  with  his  father,  but  she  did  not  resent  his 
reticence.  Her  husband  had  accustomed  her  to  silence, 
and,  like  the  deaf,  she  read  faces,  without  words.) 
She  let  him  go,  and  he  tramped  the  streets  of  Coulton 
in  the  footprints  of  his  past,  marvelling  to  see  how 
the  life  of  the  little  town  stood  rooted,  like  a  village 
seen  from  the  window  of  a  railroad  car  as  the  years 
whirled  him  along.  The  Park  was  incredibly  small— 
the  park  in  which  he  and  Conroy  had  roamed  as  if 
it  had  been  a  prairie.  His  ravine,  leafless  and  frozen, 
was  bare  and  mean,  with  a  little  gurgle  of  water  un 
der  thin  ice.  His  aunt  bored  him.  His  cousins  sat 
and  looked  at  him,  unable  to  reach  his  interest,  or 
teased  and  fought  around  him  as  if  he  were  not  in 
the  room.  He  came  back  to  his  home  like  a  reluctant 
visitor,  feeling  the  presence  of  the  taciturn  head  of 
the  house  as  soon  as  he  saw  the  maples  that  stood 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  85 

along  the  fence,  and  entering  the  front  door  with 
the  silent  droop  in  spirit  of  a  dog  suddenly  brought 
to  heel. 

His  whole  life  was  opening  before  him,  inviting 
him  like  an  adventurous  and  breezy  road;  and  in 
those  days  of  waiting,  he  resolved  that  wherever  that 
road  might  lead  him,  it  should  bring  him  back  to 
Coulton— except  as  a  hasty  visitor— never  again. 


IV 


HE  woke  to  his  expected  liberty,  on  the  following 
Sunday  morning,  in  his  boarding-house  room — a 
room  as  small  as  ,a  squirrel-cage,  with  its  slanting 
roof  and  its  dormer  window  the  sash  of  which,  hung 
loosely  on  hinges,  allowed  a  powdered  snow  to  sift 
in  on  the  sill.  The  railroad  journey  of  the  previous 
night  had  been  an  impatient  flight  to  this  haven  of 
lonely  freedom;  and  he  had  fallen  asleep,  too  tired 
to  think,  with  a  happy  assurance  that  the  next  day 
would  rise  on  his  new  life. 

It  had  risen.  The  sun  was  bright  on  window-panes 
that  were  white  with  a  hoar  frost  as  thick  as  a  lichen. 
His  trunk,  still  unstrapped,  stood  in  a  corner.  His 
lamp  was  on  his  table,  his  books  on  the  shelves  of  the 
"what-not"  which  served  him  as  a  bookcase.  It  was 
as  if  he  were  in  a  cabin  on  board  ship,  a  night's  sail 
from  land;  and  he  was  eager  to  be  out  on  deck  to  see 
the  new  horizon. 

He  jumped  from  his  bed,  and  the  cold  closed  on 


86  DON-A-DREAMS 

him  as  invigorating  as  an  icy  bath.  It  was  nine 
o'clock  by  his  watch.  He  scrambled  into  his  clothes, 
his  teeth  chattering  laughably.  The  water  from  his 
cracked  basin  stung  on  his  hands  and  face.  He 
smiled  at  the  ghostly  reflection  of  himself  in  the  mir 
ror  that  was  as  dull  as  a  sheet  of  tin ;  and  he  laughed 
when  he  found  that  his  watch,  lying  on  the  marble 
top  of  his  washstand,  had  been  stopped  over  night  by 
the  penetrating  cold  of  the  stone.  He  went  down 
stairs  on  tip-toe,  in  the  silence  of  a  house  asleep,  put 
on  his  overcoat  and  fur  cap  like  a  thief,  and  opened 
the  front  door  on  a  sparkling  level  of  new-fallen  snow 
that  lay,  untracked— an  unbroken  wonder,  a  white 
spell  of  silence— over  the  empty  street.  He  stood  a 
moment,  on  the  edge  of  it,  almost  reluctant  to  break 
the  charm.  Then  he  drew  his  cap  down  to  his  ears, 
and  with  an  unvoiced  shout  of  high  spirits  he  ran 
down  the  porch  steps  and  waded  in. 

The  sunshine  blinded  him,  breaking  into  prismatic 
colors  on  the  lashes  of  his  half-closed  eyes.  The  snow 
silenced  his  footsteps.  There  was  not  even  a  stir  of 
wind  to  make  life  around  him.  He  walked  in  an 
enchanted  world,  through  the  stillness  of  a  Sunday 
morning,  his  thought  singing  ecstatically,  in  a  croon 
of  pleasure,  like  a  child  at  play. 

He  went  without  design,  without  direction.  But 
unconsciously  he  turned  into  the  way  that  led  to  col 
lege,  and  he  strode  along,  swinging  his  arms,  his  head 
down  against  the  sun,  glancing  at  the  houses  which 
he  passed,  and  smiling— with  all  the  contempt  of  his 
frost-bitten  and  tingling  alertness— at  thought  of  the 


THE   DAY-DREAMER  87 

warm  sloth  of  the  sleepers  indoors.  He  caught  a 
glimpse  of  a  face  at  a  lower  window,  but  the  frozen 
brilliance  of  a  lawn  gleamed  between  him  and  it,  and 
he  could  not  see  it  clearly.  He  slowed  his  pace  at  the 
next  street  corner,  and  hesitated  there  until  he  re 
membered  that  the  Conservatory  of  Music  stood  in 
the  middle  of  the  block  below:  then  he  turned  in  that 
direction,  with  the  scarcely  conscious  intention  of 
looking  at  the  door  through  which  she  was  to  enter 
to  her  studies  and  the  windows  from  which  she  was 
to  look  out. 

He  was  thinking  of  her  blissfully,  deep  in  his 
dreams,  when  he  heard  a  muffled  sound  of  hurried 
footsteps  behind  him.  He  was  in  front  of  the  Con 
servatory,  now,  and  he  walked  very  slowly,  to  let  the 
passerby  go  before  him,  so  that  he  might  stand  and 
gaze  if  he  pleased.  He  heard  a  quick  breath  at  his 
elbow.  He  pretended  to  be  curiously  interested  in 
the  red  stone  'building,  bald  and  formal,  among  its 
stripped  trees.  A  low  voice— her  voice— choked  with 
mischief,  asked:  "Well?  How  do  you  like  it?" 

She  was  gasping  between  laughter  and  the  attempt 
to  catch  her  breath,  flushed  with  the  exertion  of  over 
taking  him  and  enjoying  almost  hysterically  the  awk 
wardness  of  his  surprise.  He  stammered:  "Why— 
how — "  He  was  not  conscious  of  taking  the  hand 
which  she  held  out  to  him.  He  stared  at  her  in  a 
dumb  amazement  that  was  ludicrous.  "How  did 
you— 

"I  saw  you  pass  the  house.  Didn't  you  see  me?— 
at  the  window?" 


88  DON-A-DREAMS 

He  shook  his  head  blankly.  "No.  Was  it  you— 
following  me?" 

She  nodded^  breathless. 

"Why  didn't  you  call  out?" 

"I— I  couldn't."  She  freed  her  hand  from  him 
and  pressed  it  against  her  side,  panting.  "I  was 
walking  so  fast,  I  could  n  't.  Why  did  you  stop  ? ' ' 

He  did  not  take  his  fascinated  gaze  from  her  to 
indicate  the  building;  he  jerked  his  head  back  at  it, 
beginning  to  smile  as  a  slow  blush  of  pleasure  burned 
up  into  his  face.  "Conroy  told  me—" 

"That  I  was  coming?" 

"Yes — to  study  music."  His  smile  was  for  him 
self  now  as  he  saw  the  situation.  "I  came  to  see 
whether  you  were  here  yet." 

"Really?"  He  had  not  changed,  she  thought;  his 
face  was  a  little  older,  a  little  thinner;  but  his  smile 
was  the  same  unguarded,  boyish  grin.  She  laughed 
in  a  sudden  release  of  her  pent-up  excitement,  her 
amused  scrutiny  deepening  to  a  frank  regard  of  sym 
pathy,  as  warm  as  a  clasp  of  hands. 

It  brought  his  own  ardor  into  his  face,  glowing 
and  tender.  "Yes,"  he  said.  "Really."  And  his 
voice  shook  on  the  word  with  a  husky  tremble. 

She  looked  away  from  him  in  quick  embarrassment, 
glancing  around  her  at  the  frozen  silence  that  held 
them  in  the  heart  of  an  immense  calm.  "Is  n't — 
is  n't  it  funny?  Why  is  it  so  quiet?" 

She  wore  a  little  sealskin  cap  set  jauntily  on  the 
dark  brown  luster  of  her  hair,  and  under  a  wave  of 
that— as  she  turned— he  saw  the  rosy-tender  dainti- 


THE    DAY-DREAMER  89 

ness  of  her  ear,  a  little  curled  shell  of  an  ear  that 
appealed  to  everything  masculine  in  him  as  the  sight 
of  an  infant's  wrinkled  fingers  will  appeal  to  all  the 
maternal  in  a  woman.  He  heard  himself  reply: 
"Well,  it  's  Sunday.  And  it  can't  be  more  than  eight 
o'clock  yet." 

She  felt  his  look  on  her,  and  could  not  turn  to 
meet  it.  "Would  n't  she  scold  if  she  knew— mother 
She  had  a  cough.  I  left  her  in  bed." 

He  blinked  the  existence  of  her  mother— of  every 
one  but  the  two  of  them  alone  and  together.  "Have 
you  had  your  breakfast?" 

"No.  .  .  .    Have  you?" 

"No."  He  added  daringly,  in  a  voice  that  belied 
the  attempted  bravado  of  his  smile:  "I  could  n't  wait. 
I  wanted  to  see  you." 

She  tried  to  laugh  at  him  again.  "You  funny 
boy!" 

"I  knew  I  'd  meet  you." 

"How?" 

"I  don't  know.    Are  you  going  to  church?" 

The  hungry  directness  of  the  appeal  confused  her. 
"I  suppose  so.  Yes.  After  breakfast." 

"Where?     What  one?" 

"Whichever  's  the  nearest." 

"St.  Stephen's?" 

She  tried  to  fence  with  him,  to  get  time  to  think. 
"Is  that  the  nearest?" 

"Yes."    He  waited. 

She  looked  around  her  vaguely.     "Where  is  it?" 

"I   '11  show  you.     After  breakfast.  .  .  .  May  I?" 


90  DON-A-DREAMS 

She  had  never  before  seen  that  expression  in  a  face, 
or  heard  that  tone  in  a  voice;  and  they  frightened 
her  at  the  same  time  that  they  thrilled  and  flattered 
her.  "Oh,  goodness!"  she  faltered.  "I  must  hurry 
back— before  they  come  down— and  miss  me."  She 
started,  with  a  quick  step,  toward  the  house;  and 
he  stumbled  in  the  snow  as  he  turned  with  her,  look 
ing  at  her— instead  of  watching  the  path  he  was  walk 
ing — and  gone  suddenly  dumb.  "I  hope  they  don't 
see  me,"  she  said.  "You  mustn't  come  to  the  door." 
She  stopped  abruptly.  "How  ever  shall  I  tell 
mother ! ' ' 

He  asked,  startled:  "Tell  her  what?" 

"Why,  that  I— I  ran  after  you?" 

''Don't  tell  her.  Tell  her  you  met  me  at  church. 
I  '11  meet  you  there." 

She  hinted  guiltily:  "I  promised  her  I  would  n't 
write. ' ' 

"Well,  you  did  n't,  did  you?" 

"No,  I  only  wrote  Jessie.  But  if  I  make  an  ap 
pointment  to  meet  you,  is  n't  that—" 

"Don't  make  it.     I  '11  meet  you." 

"Where?" 

"You  're  not  to  know.  What  time  will  you  be 
going— to  church?" 

She  started  forward  rapidly  again,  without  answer 
ing,  but  he  kept  pace  with  her.  "To  St.  Stephen's?" 
he  pressed  her.  "It  's  right  ahead  of  us— about  four 
blocks  up  the  street."  When  she  did  not  reply,  he 
suggested,  with  an  appealing  timidity:  "At  ten 
o'clock?" 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  91 

At  last,  she  said,  almost  in  a  whisper,  her  face 
shamefully  suffused:  "Yes,  .  .  .  but  you  must  n't  come 
any  further  now.  There  's  the  house— where  you  see 
those  little  trees  along  the  'boulevard'."  She  put  out 
her  hand.  "Good-bye." 

He  held  it  a  moment.     "Good-bye." 

When  she  glanced  back  from  the  gate,  he  was  stand 
ing  where  she  had  left  him,  his  hand  half  raised  from 
releasing  hers,  gazing  after  her. 

She  disappeared ;  and  he  looked  about  him,  blink 
ing,  like  a  man  who  has  seen  a  vision  and  does  not 
recognize  the  familiar  and  unchanged  world  in  which 
it  has  left  him. 

HE  turned  dazedly  down  the  street.  Beautiful! 
How  beautiful  she  was!  That  was  his  first  thought. 
And  it  was  not  a  thought  so  much  as  a  mental  picture 
of  her  which  he  could  gloat  over  now,  in  silence, 
without  the  distraction  of  speech.  He  framed  her 
face  in  the  hollow  of  his  hands  and  held  it  before 
him— the  dear  girl's  face,  laughing  up  at  him  from 
its  dimples,  with  a  tenderer  gleam  in  the  mischievous 
eyes !  Beautiful !  Beau — He  came  down  with  a 
startling  jolt  from  the  sidewalk  into  the  drifted  gut 
ter.  He  pulled  himself  together  with  a  half  laugh, 
and  hurried  away  down  the  avenue  like  one  possessed. 
And  he  was  possessed.  His  eyes  were  possessed  by 
her  smile,  his  ears  by  the  note  of  her  voice,  his  brain 
by  the  trivial  words  she  had  spoken,  his  nerves  by 
the  thrill  that  had  set  him  shaking  when  he  had  tried 
to  say  good-bye  to  her.  She  had  taken  him,  body  and 


92  DON-A-DREAMS 

mind;  and  his  blood  was  in  a  fever,  and  his  thoughts 
were  deliriously  confused.  But  even  so,  there  was 
something  spiritual  in  his  frenzy.  He  thought  of  her 
as  the  boy  of  the  classic  fable  must  have  thought  of 
his  goddess  when  she  descended  to  him — Diana ! — 
from  her  moon.  After  the  first  hungry  obsession 
that  had  made  him  take  her  face  in  his  hands,  he  stood 
back  from  her  as  from  something  holy.  She  was  what 
the  poets  had  made  woman  to  him.  She  was  some 
thing  so  nearly  divine  that  she  was  to  be  almost  wor 
shipped  with  that  passionate  reverence  which  the 
poets  make  of  love.  All  his  religious  emotions, 
turned  back  from  their  proper  outlet  by  the  scepticisms 
of  Science,  flowed  out  to  her  in  the  tide  of  desire. 
His  make-believes,  his  day-dreams  of  her,  had  sur 
rounded  her  with  a  sort  of  glory  that  was  part  of  the 
bewitchment  of  her  beauty.  He  did  not  even  dare, 
in  his  thought,  to  kiss  her  hand. 

And  yet,  that  was  not  all.  The  process  of  his  mind 
was  not  so  high  fantastical  alone.  With  the  com 
plexity  of  a  brain  that  was  trained  to  cheat  itself 
with  its  own  make-believes  but  still  was  never  ignorant 
that  it  was  being  cheated,  Don  was  aware  that  his 
relations  with  her  were  not  to  be  simply  those  of 
blind  worship  and  accepted  love.  Her  frightened 
confusion,  when  his  voice  had  betrayed  him,  warned 
him,  now,  that  mere  ecstasy  and  ardor  would  only 
drive  her  from  him;  that  he  must  be  politic;  that  she 
was  a  human  being  judging  him  in  accordance  with 
the  conventions  of  human  society,  and  not  as  clair 
voyant  as  a  goddess  or  as  untrammeled  as  an  ideal. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  93 

He  understood  that  he  was  in  a  game  against  her,  a 
game  of  courtship  with  his  happiness  at  stake;  and 
with  all  the  madness  of  a  lover,  he  developed  some 
of  the  instinctive  craftiness  as  well. 

He  began  to  plan,  walking  more  deliberately  and 
frowning  in  his  effort  to  think.  He  recognized  that 
her  mother,  of  course,  would  be  the  great  opponent 
of  any  free  intercourse  with  her;  and  though  he 
might  perhaps  call  on  her,  in  the  restricted  circle  of 
parental  surveillance,  that  would  be  to  bring  the  lady 
of  his  dreams  down  to  the  commonplaces  of  everyday 
life,  and  he  rejected  the  thought.  What  he  wanted 
was  her  alone,  away  from  everybody  else  in  the  world, 
as  he  had  had  her  in  the  innocent  beginnings  of  their 
companionship  at  Coulton,  as  he  had  always  had  her 
in  imagination,  since. 

He  finished  his  walk  at  the  bowed  pace  of  troubled 
meditation. 

THE  mistress  of  the  house  in  which  he  boarded  had 
a  motherly  regard  for  her  studious  guest,  and  served 
him  without  intruding  any  remarks  upon  him  when 
ever  she  saw  him  preoccupied  with  thought.  Her 
daughter,  long  since  discouraged  in  the  first  atten 
tions  of  a  somewhat  stale  coquetry,  had  fallen  back 
on  a  disdainful  silence  in  her  unavoidable  meetings 
with  him,  and  spoke  of  him  with  the  contempt  of  a 
critic  whose  appreciations  had  been  despised.  The 
nine-year  old  son  who  completed  the  family  was  al 
ways  silently  engaged  at  breakfast  in  an  attempt  to 
avoid  eating  porridge — which  he  hated  unhealthily 


94  DON-A-DREAMS 

and  his  mother  made  him  eat— by  smuggling  as  much 
of  it  as  possible  into  his  coffee  cup,  drinking  off  the 
overflow  of  coffee  and  emptying  the  guilty  mug,  later, 
in  the  kitchen.  Mother,  daughter  and  son  left  Don 
to  his  plans. 

Nevertheless,  when  he  went  out  to  waylay  Margaret 
on  her  road  to  church,  he  had  formed  no  design  for 
circumventing  the  difficulties  in  his  path.  He  saw 
no  further  than  the  fact  that  he  was  to  meet  her 
again.  It  was,  perhaps,  for  the  last  time,  alone;  but, 
at  least,  it  was  this  once;  and  he  took  what  joy  he 
could  from  that  concession  of  circumstance. 


HE  had  been  pacing  up  and  down  in  the  cold,  for 
fifteen  minutes,  kicking  his  toes  into  his  heels  to 
keep  his  feet  warm,  idling  at  corners  and  turning 
a  dozen  times  in  a  block  to  see  whether  she  was  com 
ing  behind  him— trembling  with  hope  at  one  thought, 
shivering  with  cold  and  the  prospect  of  disappoint 
ment  at  the  next— when  he  saw  her  between  the  ave 
nue  trees,  walking  toward  him  slowly,  graceful 
against  the  shining  background  of  the  snow,  her  head 
down  with  the  appearance  of  knowing  that  she  was 
doing  wrong.  And  the  flush  of  pleasure  with  which 
he  had  sighted  her,  faded  out  in  uneasiness  as  her 
manner  became  more  reluctant  and  unjoyful  with  her 
approach. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  95 

"I  'm  not  going  to  church,"  she  announced  hur 
riedly.  "I  can't  stay  away  from  mother  so  long. 
She  is— we  're  afraid  she  may  be  catching  pneu 
monia.  ' ' 

He  dropped  his  hand  from  his  cap.  His  disappoint 
ment  was  so  complete  that  it  left  him  blank;  he  had 
nothing  to  say. 

She  turned  over  the  snow  with  her  foot,  and  patted 
it  down  nervously.  "I  'm  sorry,"  she  said,  "but 
I-" 

"Oh,  it's  all  right,"  he  put  in  bravely.  "Only 
I  '11  not  have  a  chance  to— I  hope  it  is  n't  serious?" 

"We  don't  know  yet." 

"What  does  the  doctor  say?" 

She  shook  her  head.  "We  have  n't  sent  for  him. 
We  're  waiting  to  see." 

"Oh."    He  watched  her  working  at  the  snow. 

After  an  awkward  silence,  she  said:  "I  must  hurry 
right  back."  And  there  was  a  half-heartedness  in 
the  way  she  said  it,  as  if  she  were  assuring  herself 
that  she  meant  to  do  it,  very  soon. 

He  caught  the  note.  "Won't  you  walk  to  the  cor 
ner  and  back  ?  It  's  better  .  .  .  waiting  .  .  .  out  here. ' ' 

A  "cutter"  passed  them  with  a  rousing  jingle  of 
bells.  The  sunlight  was  etching  the  shadow  of  bare 
branches  on  the  snow.  He  saw  in  her  face  that  she 
felt  the  contrast  between  the  crisp  'brilliancy  of  the 
morning  and  the  heavy  atmosphere  of  indoors. 

"Well,"  she  agreed,  as  if  conditionally. 

When  they  had  gone  a  few  steps,  he  asked:  "Have 
you  ever  seen  the  college?" 


96  DON-A-DREAMS 

''No Is  it  far?" 

"Just  two  streets  over— to  the  grounds." 

"Well." 

She  stepped  out  more  briskly,  having  made  a  truce 
with  her  conscience,  apparently;  and  when  he  asked 
"Have  you  left  Horton?"  she  answered  "Oh,  yes. 
I  didn't  go  back  this  year  at  all.  We  didn't  know 
quite  what  we  were  going  to  do." 

"About  what?" 

"About  everything!  Mother  has  been  having  dif 
ficulty — with  lawyers,  you  know — about  property — I 
mean  'titles'— in  father's  will,  and  now  she  has  won 
the  cases  and  sold  everything  and  invested  the  money, 
and  she  wants  to  travel — to  Germany  or  some  place 
where  I  can  study  music— or  New  York." 

"Are  n't  you  going  to  be  at  the  Conservatory?" 

She  hastened  to  reassure  his  dismay.  "Yes,  yes. 
For  this  term.  Of  course !  .  .  .  Mother  may  leave  me 
here,  with  Mrs.  Kimball,  and  go  down  south  for  the 
winter.  She  has  been  talking  of  it  since  September— 
and  this  cold  may  drive  her  away." 

"Oh?"  The  aching  apprehension  which  her  greet 
ing  had  started  in  him,  had  been  slowly  easing.  Now 
there  began  to  work  in  its  place  a  bubbling  sense  of 
happiness  that  was  as  unreasonable  as  an  intoxication. 
He  struggled  to  repress  his  smiles.  He  looked  down 
at  the  snow  on  the  sidewalk  and  up  at  the  snow  in 
the  crotches  of  the  trees.  He  fastened  the  button  of 
his  heavy  glove,  inspecting  it  narrowly,  with  the  man 
ner  of  a  girl  who  is  in  danger  of  giggling  in  church. 
"I  hope  it  won't  be  as  bad  as  that,"  he  said  in  a  false 
voice. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  97 

"What?" 

"Her  cold." 

"No.  ...  I  hope  not."  She  glanced  around  at  him, 
but  he  pretended  to  be  examining  the  front  of  a  house 
across  the  road.  She  put  up  her  hand  to  pat  and 
finger  the  coil  of  hair  at  the  back  of  her  head;  and 
when  he  looked  at  her  again,  noticing  her  silence,  he 
saw  that  her  arm  was  shaking. 

' '  Wh— what  's  the  matter  ? ' ' 

The  irrepressible  quiver  of  laughter  in  his  voice 
set  her  off;  and  with  her  first  convulsive  choke,  he 
snickered.  They  began  to  laugh  in  a  sort  of  sup 
pressed  hysteria,  blundering  along  through  the  snow 
together,  unable  to  look  at  each  other  and  breaking 
out  into  fresh  spasms  of  giggles  infectiously  like  a 
pair  of  children. 

"I  did  n't  say  anything,"  he  protested. 

' '  You  're  so  funny ! ' '  she  cried.  And  that  started 
them  afresh. 

They  had  gone  a  block  before  they  recovered  con 
trol  of  themselves;  and  even  then  their  conversation 
was  interspersed  with  unreasoning  smiles  and  amused 
silences.  But  that  laughter  had  broken  down  the 
restraint  that  separated  them;  it  had  joined  them  in 
an  unconscious  conspiracy  against  her  mother;  and 
it  had  brought  them  nearer  to  the  camaraderie  of 
their  Coulton  days.  No  matter  what  commonplaces 
they  spoke  now,  there  was  a  sparkling  undercurrent, 
unexpressed  and  really  inexpressible,  flowing  beneath 
their  words,  almost  in  a  secret  understanding,  like 
the  furtive  twinkles  of  two  actors  who  had  been  jok 
ing  together  in  the  wings  before  they  came  out  on 


98  DON-A-DREAMS 

the  stage  to  speak  their  lines.  With  Don,  the  acting 
was  not  unconscious;  he  was  well  aware  that  he  was 
not  voicing  the  tumult  of  his  heart.  But  with  her, 
the  inner  working  of  her  thought  was  in  the  more 
complicated  spirit  of  a  mild  flirtation.  She  knew 
that  she  was  playing  with  fire,  for  the  first  flame  in 
Don's  eyes,  that  morning,  had  frightened  her;  but 
he  had  hidden  it  now,  though  she  knew  it  was  still 
there;  and  while,  in  her  words,  she  refused  to  recog 
nize  it,  she  fed  it  with  glances,  with  smiles,  with  little 
dimpling  blushes,  warmed  and  excited  by  it,  girlishly. 

She  asked  him  what  he  had  been  doing  at  college; 
and  he  told  her  what  lectures  he  had  been  taking 
and  what  subjects  he  preferred.  She  asked  him  how 
he  had  spent  his  Christmas;  and  he  replied  with  re 
port  of  the  friends  whom  she  had  left  in  Coulton 
and  of  the  small  events  of  the  town.  They  made  no 
reference  to  that  past  which  included  his  love  letter 
and  its  result.  He  said  nothing  of  his  constant 
thought  of  her,  nothing  of  his  revolt  against  the  dic 
tation  of  his  father,  nothing  of  his  inner  life  at  all. 
He  kept  their  conversation  on  the  easy  plane  of 
friendly  chatter;  and  when  she  brushed  against  his 
shoulder,  in  a  narrowing  of  the  path,  he  did  not  speak 
until  the  choke  of  emotion  had  died  down  again  in  his 
throat. 

She  liked  skating  better  than  toboganning;  he  had 
done  very  little  of  either.  She  recalled  with  enthu 
siasm  a  "bobbing"  party  which  the  girls  had  had. at 
Horton,  last  winter,  on  a  moonlit  night;  and  he 
laughed  at  her  description  of  how  she  had  blown  a 


THE  DAY-DEEAMER  99 

tin  horn  in  the  ear  of  a  teacher  whom  she  disliked. 
He  learned  that  she  was  contemptuous  of  boys 
who  wore  ''spring  skates,  you  know,"  instead  of  the 
hockey  skates  which  screwed  to  the  sole  of  the  shoe; 
and  he  marked  the  distinction  in  his  memory  as  if 
it  were  a  point  of  correct  dress  to  be  observed.  And 
he  was  so  unaffectedly  interested  in  everything  she 
said— in  such  sympathetic  accord  with  all  her  likes 
and  dislikes,  and  so  eager  to  hear  every  scrap  of  in 
formation  that  would  help  him  to  imagine  her  in  the 
life  which  she  had  led  in  their  separation— that  she 
enjoyed  her  walk  like  a  princess  among  courtiers  and 
rewarded  him,  regally,  with  her  smile. 

When  they  saw  the  towers  of  "Varsity"  showing  in 
dark  grey  above  the  snow-powdered  tops  of  the  pines 
which  screened  the  building  from  this  approach,  he 
was  reminded  of  his  cousin,  and  asked  quickly: 
"Have  you  seen  him— Conroy — yet?" 

"Not  yet." 

"He  will  be  calling  to  see  you  as  soon  as  he  hears." 

"I  suppose  so.    Yes." 

"If  your  mother  's  not  too  ill." 

"But,"  she  laughed,  "I  did  n't  say  she  was  so  ill. 
It  was  Mrs.  Kimball  who  was  afraid  she  might  be 
getting  pneumonia.  I  just— I  did  n't  like  to  say  I 
was  going  to  church  without  her,  so  I  said  I  was 
going.  .  .  to  take  a  little  walk.  .  .  while  the  sun  was 
out." 

"Oh."  When  he  had  readjusted  his  thoughts  to 
that  change  in  the  situation,  he  went  on  boldly:  "I 
might  call  with  him,  then?" 


100  DON-A-DREAMS 

"I  'm  sure— Yes,  of  course.    Why  not?" 

lie  suggested,  in  as  matter-of-fact  a  tone  as  pos 
sible:  "If  you  wrote  to  him,  telling  him  where  you 
are,  he  '11  ask  me  to  go  with  him  ...  I  think." 

The  quick  glance  she  gave .  him,  archly,  accepted 
the  small  deception  which  the  plan  implied.  "Well," 
she  agreed. 

They  walked  in  a  guiltily-smiling  silence  until  they 
came  to  the  side  gate  of  the  college  grounds.  Their 
agreement  required  that  Conroy  should  not  see  them 
together.  Don  said:  "He  's  in  Residence,  you  know," 
and  nodded  toward  the  building. 

She  turned  quickly.  "I  must  n't  go  any  further. 
I  've  been  away  so  long  already." 

"That's  so,"  he  said.  "Let's  go  back  by  the 
avenue. ' ' 

It  was  the  longest  way  round. 

As  soon  as  the  college  was  out  of  sight  in  the  trees, 
the  hush  of  their  small  conspiracy  lifted  again,  and 
they  went  along  with  £heir  chatter,  stepping  out 
against  a  wind  that  was  sifting  the  snow  down  on 
them  from  the  branches  overhead.  He  asked  her 
whether  she  was  cold— because  the  question  gave  him 
an  excuse  for  looking  at  her  with  a  lingering  appre 
hension.  She  replied  that  she  was  not,  but  tried  to 
turn  up  her  collar  to  show  him  a  woman's  apprecia 
tion  of  his  thought  of  her  comfort.  And  when  the 
collar  came  up  awkwardly,  she  let  him  help  her  with 
it,  and  pretended  not  to  notice  the  reverent  timidity 
with  which  he  did  it. 

"Are  n't  you  too?"    she  asked.    "Turn  yours  up," 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  101 

—repaying  him  with  innocent  full  eyes  that  enjoyed 
the  confusion  they  created. 

"Oh,  I  'm— I  'm  all  right,"  he  stammered,  but 
raised  the  collar  obediently  with  an  expression  of 
face  at  once  so  pleased  and  so  blushingly  grateful 
that  it  appealed  to  her  affection  like  the  clumsy  de 
votion  of  the  awkward  age. 

She  continued  their  conversation  in  a  more  serious 
tone  for  the  remainder  of  the  way,  drawing  from 
him  the  confession  that  he  did  not  intend  to  study 
law  but  did  not  know  what  he  did  intend  to  study; 
and  when  they  stopped  at  the  street  corner  below  her 
house  again,  she  gave  him  her  hand  with  demure 
good  wishes  for  his  success  in  whatever  "course"  he 
decided  to  follow;  and  he  carried  away  with  him  a 
memory  of  her  gentle  confidence  that  was  at  once  a 
benediction  and  a  surety  for  hope. 

He  took  a  long  walk,  that  afternoon,  to  the  elm 
where  he  had  fancied  her  sitting  with  him  looking 
down  on  the  town;  and  he  stood  there  in  the  snow, 
leaning  against  the  tree,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  dis 
tant  spire  of  St.  Stephen's  that  marked  the  quarter 
in  which  she  lived.  After  supper,  he  locked  him 
self  in  his  room,  and  having  lit  his  lamp  and  opened 
his  books,  he  spent  the  evening  in  idleness,  trying  to 
draw  a  picture  of  her  in  lead  pencil  on  a  page  of  his 
note  book,  tantalized  by  the  visual  memory  of  her 
which  he  could  not  reproduce — or  abandoning  him 
self  to  it,  with  closed  eyes,  resting  his  head  and  arms 
on  the  table,  smiling  blindly— until  the  cold  drove 
him  to  bed.  There,  he  lay  on  his  back,  his  hands 


102  DON-A-DREAMS 

clasped  over  his  head,  staring  at  the  blackness  in 
which  he  saw  sudden  retinal  images  of  her  that 
flashed  and  vanished.  And  he  tried  to  make  his  bed 
rock  down  through  the  floor  to  "Slumberland"— in 
a  return  to  his  childish  fancies— holding  to  the  mem 
ory  of  her  in  the  hope  that  he  might  compel  her  to 
come  into  his  dreams;  and  he  woke,  with  a 
start,  his  arms  numb,  his  shoulders  aching,  and 
found  the  thought  of  her  again,  and  cuddled  down 
with  it  under  the  bedclothes  like  a  child  who  wakes 
frightened,  and  finds  its  mother's  hand  there  in  the 
dark. 


VI 


IT  was  next  day  that  Conroy  met  him  in  the  col 
lege  corridor,  and  took  him  aside,  to  the  deep  em 
brasure  of  a  window,  with  a  manner  at  once  confused 
and  mysterious.  "Read  this,"  he  said,  and  drew 
from  his  pocket  the  small  envelop  of  a  note  from  her. 
It  announced  that  she  and  her  mother  were  staying 
with  the  Kimballs,  invited  him  to  call,  and  concluded 
"If  there  are  any  other  of  our  Coulton  friends  in 
town,  will  you  please  let  them  know?" 

Don  read  it,  refolded  it,  returned  it  to  its  envelop, 
and  gave  it  back  without  a  word. 

Conroy  asked  timidly:  "Did  n't  she  write  to  you?" 

He  shook  his  head.    "No." 

"Perhaps  she  did  n't  know  you  were  here." 

"Yes.    I  think  she  knew." 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  103 

His  cousin  turned  the  note  over,  without  putting 
it  back  in  his  pocket,  in  a  manner  of  disowning  it, 
apologetically.  "That  's  queer." 

"Why?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  thought— Are  n't  you  going  to 
see  her?" 

"I  think  so.     Yes." 

"Are  you!    When?" 

"Whenever  you  like." 

Conroy  was  obviously  relieved.  "I  '11  call  for  you 
on  my  way  over  to-night,  shall  I  ?  " 

"Yes  ...  if  you  're  going  to-night." 

"About  half-past  eight?" 

"That  '11  do.    Yes." 

"You  '11  be  ready?" 

"I  '11  try  to." 

"All  right.     Half -past  eight,  sharp." 

Don  escaped,  ashamed  of  his  deception;  and  Con 
roy,  before  he  tucked  away  the  letter  in  his  pocket, 
fingered  it  a  moment,  smiling  like  a  nattered  young 
Lothario. 

HE  arrived  at  Don's  boarding-house  at  eight 
o'clock,  in  high  spirits,  and  assumed  the  leadership 
of  the  expedition  at  once,  laughing  and  talking  and 
straightening  his  necktie  before  the  mirror  and  cock 
ing  his  head  on  one  side  to  see  the  "set"  of  his 
trouser  legs,  while  he  waited  for  Don  to  polish  a  pair 
of  cracked  shoes.  He  was  too  boyish  to  have  any 
self-conscious  vanity,  but  he  glanced  at  his  watch, 
patted  it  back  into  his  pocket,  and  smoothed  his 


104  DON-A-DREAMS 

waistcoat  with  a  pleased  and  excited  air  that  would 
have  been  in  an  older  man  the  anticipation  of  a  "lady- 
killer."  He  was  not  handsome;  his  features  were  too 
flat.  But  he  was  well-dressed  and  well-built,'  and  he 
had  the  assurance  of  an  easy  manner.  He  accented, 
by  contrast,  Don's  paleness,  his  angularity,  and  his 
student  shabbiness;  and  by  an  exuberance  of  spirits 
he  had  the  effect  of  increasing,  perversely,  Don's 
reserve. 

They  came,  together,  to  the  door  of  the  old,  "semi 
detached,"  white-brick  house,  in  which  the  Kimballs 
lived.  Don  let  him  ring,  standing  back  himself  on 
the  edge  of  the  porch  to  look  at  the  lighted  curtains 
of  the  window  at  which  she  had  stood  to  see  him  pass 
on  Sunday  morning.  And  when  a  maid  opened  the 
door,  Don  followed  in,  under  the  crimson  gas-globe 
of  the  hall,  as  reverently  as  if  he  had  been  entering 
a  church. 

Lights  and  laughter  and  the  music  of  a  piano 
invaded  him  with  bewilderment  almost  at  once.  She 
parted  the  hangings  of  a  doorway  at  his  elbow,  and 
greeted  Conroy  and  him  with  a  dazzlingly  flushed 
smile,  dressed  as  he  had  never  seen  her  before,  in  a 
young  girl's  evening  gown  with  elbow  sleeves.  She 
ushered  them  into  a  blazing  room  of  gaslights  and 
strange  faces,  and  introduced  them  to  a  multitudinous 
company— of  seven  persons.  Her  mother,  a  small  and 
pretty  woman  with  young  eyes,  met  them — in  spite 
of  a  hoarse  cold— with  the  bright  friendliness  that 
was  habitual  with  her.  Mrs.  Kimball,  without  rising, 
lifted  the  drooped  and  puffy  eyelids  of  a  strong  face, 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  105 

and  acknowledged  their  bows  with  the  slightest  incli 
nation  of  her  head,  grey-haired  and  fine-looking. 
Three  young  ladies  who  were  to  Don  three  different 
arrangements  of  feminine  eyes,  nose  and  mouths, 
smiled  politely  and  forgot  him.  A  young  man  with 
a  pince-nez— whom  he  recognized  as  an  upper  stu 
dent  of  the  university— shook  his  hand  with  a  manner 
of  condescending,  for  the  moment  only,  to  meet  a 
Freshman  as  a  social  equal.  Another  man,  prema 
turely  bald,  said  deeply  "Glad  to  know  you,"  and  then 
startled  him  with  a  limp  touch  of  indifferent  fingers 
which  he  dropped  like  a  wet  fish.  He  recovered  from 
his  embarrassment  to  find  himself  sitting  beside  a  girl 
whom  he  subsequently  discovered  to  be  the  younger 
of  Mrs.  Kimball's  two  daughters. 

She  opened  conversation  with  him,  patronizingly, 
by  asking  him  whether  he  was  a  college  student,  what 
"year"  he  was  in,  and  what  "course"  he  was  taking; 
and  leaning  back  in  her  chair  with  an  unnecessary 
haughtiness  that  brought  out  a  striking  pose  of  her 
neck  and  head,  she  regarded  him  with  a  cool  curiosity 
in  which  there  was  something  inimical.  .  He  did  not 
understand  that  she  rather  shone  in  her  young  circle 
as  a  girl  who  questioned  the  intellectual  superiority 
of  men— as  evidenced  in  college  students — and  who 
prided  herself  on  discouraging  with  sarcasms  the 
masculine  adoration  which  her  beauty  brought  her. 
He  replied  to  her  with  a  divided  attention,  aware  that 
Conroy  and  Margaret — for  the  "Richardson"  was 
still  a  strange  formality  to  his  thought— had  gone  to 
the  piano  together,  and  that  Conroy  was  preparing 


106  DON-A-DREAMS 

to  turn  the  pages  of  her  music  while  she  played. 
She  was  poised  on  the  duet-bench  with  a  slender  grace 
of  figure  that  was  heart-shaking.  In  a  strange  duality 
of  consciousness,  Don  bent  above  her,  with  Conroy, 
devotedly,  at  the  same  time  that  he  heard  Miss  Kim- 
ball  and  replied  to  her. 

"I  beg  your  pardon?" 

Miss  Kimball,  after  a  calculated  pause,  repeated: 
"How  do  you  like  Professor  Cotton?" 

But  the  first  notes  of  the  piano,  running  in  a  quick 
melody  tenderly,  caught  and  tangled  his  attention; 
and  after  stammering  distractedly  "I — I  don't — " 
he  relapsed  into  the  silence  which  had  fallen  on  the 
room;  and  gazing  at  the  carpet  between  his  feet,  he 
listened  to  the  music,  smiling,  as  if  it  had  been  a 
voice. 

He  did  not  know  what  the  composition  was,  or 
who  had  written  it;  and  he  was  not  curious  to  know. 
It  was  magically  hers;  and  it  spoke  to  him  of  her  in 
the  rise  and  fall  of  a  melody  that  hung  and  trembled 
and  rose  plaintively  above  the  rocking  chords  of  a 
flowing  bass.  It  was  to  him  a  divine  yearning,  an 
almost  tearful  aspiration;  and  it  raised  in  him  con 
fused  thoughts  of  darkness  and  love,  of  mystery  and 
sadness  and  the  unappeasable  cry  of  affection- 
thoughts  that  were  less  thoughts  than  pensive  emo 
tions,  vibratory  moods  that  stirred  in  response  to  the 
singing  of  the  instrument  and  trembled  in  him  till 
it  seemed  to  him  that  his  very  soul  thrilled  and  was 
shaken. 

It  faded  away  in  a  fluttering  and  soft  appeal  of 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  107 

single  notes,  and  was  lost  in  a  polite  applause  that 
thanked  her  with  admiring  comment.  "How  well 
she  plays!"  "She  has  such  excellent  technique,  don't 
you  think  so  ? "  ' '  My  favorite  nocturne. ' ' 

Miss  Kimball  had  been  watching  the  changes  of 
his  face.  She  asked  "Do  you  like  Chopin?" 

He  looked  up  at  the  piano,  transparently  pale,  his 
eyes  burning;  and  he  replied — without  altogether 
understanding  what  she  had  asked — "I  don't  .  .  . 
know  him." 

THE  whole  evening  was  a  repetition  in  variations 
of  that  situation.  Although  he  did  not  watch  Conroy 
and  Margaret,  his  mind  was  secretly  with  them.  He  lis 
tened  to  Miss  Kimball  and  replied  to  her  without  be 
traying  more  than  a  heavy  simplicity;  and  he  re 
mained  impenetrable  to  her  curiosity  in  a  way  that 
first  piqued  and  then  bored  her.  When  she  rose  and 
left  him,  Mrs.  Richardson  took  the  chair  beside  him, 
and  inquired  for  his  aunt  and  his  mother,  and  tried 
to  rally  him  with  smiles.  She  had  been  noticing  the 
way  in  which  Margaret  devoted  herself  to  his  cousin; 
she  had  been  feeling  some  remorse  for  her  summary 
interdiction  of  Don's  correspondence;  and  she  began 
to  look  at  him,  now,  with  the  sympathy  of  a  mother 
who  sees  her  daughter  playing  the  coquette.  But  she 
was  surprised  to  find  him  stolidly  unruffled;  when  she 
caught  him  with  his  eyes  on  Margaret,  she  could  find 
no  trace  of  jealousy  in  his  look;  and  she  was  puzzled, 
as  much  as  Miss  Kimball  had  been,  to  see  him,  more 
than  once,  gaze  around  the  room  with  a  sort  of  won- 


108  DON-A-DREAMS 

dering  interest  as  if  he  were  suddenly  curious  to  hear 
what  they  were  saying,  to  watch  their  expressions  and 
to  study  their  gestures  and  their  clothes.  She  decided 
that  he  had  outgrown  his  boyish  love  affair,  and  she 
was  at  once  relieved  and  disappointed.  She  found  him 
rather  a  stupid  youth. 

He  was,  in  fact,  alternating  between  the  exalted 
moods  to  which  the  music  lifted  him,  and  a  puzzled 
return  to  the  consciousness  of  his  surroundings.  At 
one  moment,  he  was  alone  with  Margaret  in  the  grop- 
ings  and  longings  of  his  doubts  of  life.  At  another, 
he  was  sitting  among  these  curious  fellow-humans 
who  seemed  to  move  in  a  small  circle  of  light  sur 
rounded  by  the  mysterious  darknesses  of  their  origin 
and  their  destiny,  talking  of  nothing,  smiling  at  noth 
ing,  and  apparently  unconscious  of  anything  but  what 
was  before  their  eyes. 

When  he  rose  with  them  to  say  good-night,  they 
seemed  to  close  in  on  him  and  separate  him  from  her; 
and  it  was  as  if  across  their  interference  that  he 
reached  her  hand  for  a  moment  and  held  it  while  he 
caught  the  meaning  of  her  smile.  A  slight  pressure 
of  friendliness  seemed  to  reward  him  for  the  evening 
apart.  Then  Conroy  came  between  them  with  a  laugh 
ing  ,  ' '  You  '11  not  forget  ? ' ' — and  he  backed  away. 
Miss  Kimball  dismissed  him  with  a  contemptuous 
smile  that  stung  him  into  a  startled  examination  of 
his  conduct  toward  her;  Mrs.  Richardson  did  not  say 
good-night  to  him  at  all;  and  while  he  was  waiting 
for  Conroy  on  the  porch,  the  two  men  came  out,  laugh 
ing  and  talking,  and  passed  him  over  with  a  glance. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  109 

He  woke  to  the  fact  that  he  had  been  conspicuously 
dull  all  the  evening;  that  they  looked  on  him  as  a 
silent  boor  whose  acquaintance  was  not  worth  acknowl 
edging;  that  even  she  must  be  ashamed  of  him  when 
she  compared  his  conduct  with  Conroy's.  What  a 
clumsy  dolt  he  must  have  seemed!  What  an  ass  he 
was  to  behave  so! 

He  hurried  down  the  path  to  get  away  from  the 
scene  of  his  disgrace  as  soon  as  possible,  but  Conroy 
caught  up  to  him  at  the  gate  and  accompanied  him 
to  the  street-corner  with  a  reminiscent  chuckling  of 
self-satisfaction  that  was  a  salt  in  Don's  wounds. 
When  he  was  alone  again,  he  wandered  dispiritedly 
around  the  streets,  chafing  with  discomfiture  and 
still  so  hungry  with  the  unappeased  desire  to  see  her 
and  hear  her  that  he  could  not  face  the  emptiness  of 
his  room.  He  came  back  to  look  at  the  Kimball  house, 
hiding  from  a  street-lamp,  behind  a  tree-trunk,  across 
the  road;  and  he  watched  the  lighted  windows  darken 
one  by  one,  newly  aware  of  how  she  was  shut  in  from 
him  by  the  conventions  of  the  world,  and  feeling  him 
self  walled  out  with  his  dreams,  longing  and  lonely, 
under  the  inscrutable  cold  glitter  of  the  stars. 


VII 


HE  was  too  shy  to  face  the  Kimballs  again,  and  she 
did  not  invite  him  to  do  so ;  for  Miss  Kimball  had  made 
a  household  joke  of  his  reply  that  he  did  not  know 


110  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Mr.  Chopin,"  and  the  girl  was  afraid  that  they 
might  tease  her,  and  make  sport  of  him,  if  he  called 
to  see  her.  She  contrived  to  meet  him,  as  if  accident 
ally,  next  morning,  in  the  stream  of  college  students 
that  drew  in  from  all  the  neighboring  streets,  at  nine 
o  'clock,  to  the  beginning  of  the  day 's  lectures ;  and  he 
learned  from  her  that  he  might  find  her  coming  from 
her  music  lessons  at  eleven  o'clock  on  certain  morn 
ings  and  at  five  o'clock  on  other  afternoons. 

For  the  moment,  it  was  all  he  wished— the  oppor 
tunity  of  having  her,  if  but  for  ten  minutes,  alone 
and  out  of  doors,  away  from  the  formality  of  parlor 
conversation  and  the  curious  eyes  of  household  gos 
sips.  With  a  young  lover's  instinct,  he  wished  to 
preserve  their  intercourse  from  the  touch  and  soiling 
of  everyday  life.  And  he  parted  from  her  on  a  street 
corner,  without  taking  her  to  the  gate,  glad  to  see 
from  her  manner  that  she  did  not  wish  their  meetings 
to  be  known. 

It  was  the  fresh  beginning  of  one  of  those  strange 
courtships  of  young  people  which  appear  to  the  on 
looker  so  amusingly  tame.  He  had  suddenly  grown 
humble  with  her.  Compared  with  his  own  social 
awkwardness,  she  seemed  to  him  discouragingly 
bright  and  talented.  Sitting  in  his  room  of  an  even 
ing,  he  pictured  her,  in  the  midst  of  light  and  com 
pany,  charming  everybody  with  her  piano-playing 
and  accepting  their  congratulations  with  an  unem 
barrassed  smile.  Working  at  his  studies  in  the  col 
lege  library,  worried  by  the  uncertain  prospect  of 
his  future,  she  seemed  one  of  those  happy  aristocrats 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  111 

of  art  and  leisure  whose  duty  it  is  to  adorn  life,  to 
give  pleasure,  and  to  be  happy  that  they  may  make 
others  so.  Sullied  with  his  own  disbeliefs,  he  thought 
of  her  innocent  faith  as  something  sweet  and  pure. 
He  made  her  the  symbol  of  all  that  is  in  man  the 
substance  of  hope  and  the  object  of  aspiration,  almost 
consciously  uplifting  her  so  that  he  might  gratify  his 
instinct  to  look  up. 

And  yet,  when  he  walked  with  her,  he  said  nothing 
of  such  thoughts.  He  was  content,  for  the  present, 
that  she  should  take  an  interest  in  his  progress  at 
college,  and  accept  his  devoted  attentions  as  a  pleasant 
matter-of-course.  He  had  his  future  to  plan  anew, 
and  he  did  not  seem  to  be  able  to  think  at  once  of 
any  mode  of  life  that  would  be  sufficiently  ideal  for 
her  to  share  it.  He  examined  his  classmates,  walking 
home  with  one  or  another  of  them  at  luncheon  hour; 
and  he  found  that  a  few  were,  like  Conroy,  looking 
forward  to  succeeding  their  fathers  in  some  business; 
that  many  were  to  be  lawyers,  more  teachers,  and  some 
ministers;  but  that  the  majority  did  not  know  what 
they  were  to  be.  They  were  to  decide  after  they  had 
taken  their  degrees. 

Law  and  the  church  were  equally  out  of  the  ques 
tion  for  him;  and  the  schoolhouse  was  even  less  invit 
ing.  He  knew  nothing  of  business;  and  though  he 
consulted  the  "want  columns"  of  the  newspapers, 
they  offered  no  suggestions.  He  felt  that  he  might 
have  studied  medicine  perhaps,  or  science,  if  he  had 
begun  in  time;  but  it  was  too  late  now;  he  could  not 
turn  back  a  year  and  start  afresh.  What  he  wished 


112  DON-A-DREAMS 

was  some  way  of  earning  an  easy  living  without  mak 
ing  himself  the  bound  slave  of  business  or  a  profes 
sion;  for  he  felt  a  high  contempt  for  all  the  money- 
grubbers  and  day  laborers  whom  he  saw  crowding 
through  the  streets  of  the  city,  as  blind  as  driven 
animals,  in  the  pursuit  of  trade  or  patronage.  He 
resolved  that  he  would  find  a  way  to  live  as  free  as 
a  boy  and  as  independent  as  a  man,  avoiding  all 
ambitious  cares  or  worries,  content  to  enjoy  a  modest 
comfort  without  great  luxury,  love  her,'  and  be  happy. 
Pending  his  discovery  of  the  necessary  means  to  that 
end,  he  perfected  his  conception  of  the  end  itself  in 
his  imagination,  and  spent  hours  picturing  her  as  she 
would  look  when  she  stood  to  meet  him  in  the  door 
of  their  little  home  at  sunset— or  when  she  sat  at  the 
piano  playing  to  him  of  an  evening  with  the  lamp 
light  shining  on  her  hair — or  when  she  poured  the 
breakfast  coffee  with  a  dainty  turn  of  wrist  and 
passed  the  cup  to  him,  smiling  beautifully  across  the 
roses  that  were  always  fresh  in  a  vase  on  the  table, 
as  they  were  always  fresh  in  her  cheeks. 

Meanwhile,  their  walks  together  were  the  most  ad 
venturous  and  romantic  meetings.  One  day  it  was 
snowing  so  heavily  that  she  had  brought  an  umbrella, 
and  he  held  it  over  her,  keeping  so  close  to  her  that 
they  were  almost  arm  in  arm,  shut  in  with  her  under 
that  small  cover  by  the  storm,  and  smiling  at  nothing 
blissfully.  Then  there  was  the  day  when  the  laces 
of  one  of  her  heavy  winter  shoes  became  untied,  and 
he  knelt  down  beside  a  doorstep  to  refasten  them  for 
her,  and  she— in  order  to  steady  herself  while  she 
stood  on  one  foot— put  her  hand  on  his  shoulder  and 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  113 

bent  over  him,  laughing  at  his  clumsiness  because  his 
fingers  were  cold.  And  above  all,  there  was  the  after 
noon  when  she  made  the  excuse,  to  her  mother,  that 
she  had  to  do  some  shopping  down  town;  and  they 
made  their  way  to  the  business  district  along  the 
squalid  "back"  streets  of  "The  Ward,"  where  the 
sidewalks  were  so  slippery  that  on  their  return,  in 
the  gathering  darkness,  she  had  to  take  his  arm, 
twittering  gaily,  and  swinging  a  long  stride  to  keep 
step  with  him,  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  the  touch 
of  her  hand  was  burning  him  through  his  sleeve. 

She  no  longer  had  any  coquettish  timidity  in  her 
manner  towards  him,  and  he  was  careful  to  say  noth 
ing  that  might  frighten  her  into  thinking  seriously  of 
their  relations.  The  issue  of  his  only  declaration  of 
love  was  still  a  warning  in  his  mind.  He  did  not 
speak  of  the  future  in  which  he  had  included  her. 
When  she  asked  him  whether  he  had  decided  what  study 
he  was  going  to  pursue,  in  the  place  of  law,  he  replied 
easily:  "Oh  yes.  I  'm  taking  a  general  course— a 
'pass'  course,  they  call  it.  I  can  get  my  degree  in 
that,  you  know." 

"And  then  what  will  you  do?" 

"What  Emerson  says,"  he  laughed. 

"What  is  that?" 

"  'Make  yourself  necessary  to  the  world  and  the 
world  will  give  you  bread.'  ' 

She  looked  at  him  thoughtfully,  struck  by  the  hope 
ful  impracticality  of  his  trust  in  the  advice  of  books. 

"You  should  read  Emerson,"  he  said.  "He  's 
great. ' ' 

The  unworldly  philosophy  of  the  mild  New  Eng- 


114  DON-A-DREAMS 

lander  had  come  to  him,  only  a  few  days  before,  like 
the  gospel  to  a  new  convert.  He  had  read  with  glad 
eyes  "You  will  hear  every  day  the  maxims  of  a  low 
prudence.  You  will  hear  that  the  first  duty  is  to  get 
land  and  money,  place  and  name.  But  why  should 
you  renounce  your  right  to  traverse  the  star-lit  deserts 
of  truth  for  the  premature  comforts  of  an  acre,  house 
and  barn?  Make  yourself  necessary  to  the  world  and 
mankind  will  give  you  bread,  and  if  not  store  of  it, 
yet  such  as  shall  not  take  away  your  property  in  all 
men's  possessions,  in  all  men's  affections,  in  art,  in 
nature  and  in  hope."  He  had  felt  that  he  should 
take  as  the  motto  of  his  life:  "Whoso  would  be  a  man 
must  be  a  nonconformist.  Nothing  is  at  last  sacred 
but  the  integrity  of  your  mind."  He  had  submitted, 
in  his  relations  with  her,  to  the  command:  "Give 
all  to  love;  obey  thy  heart.  It  is  a  god,  knows  its 
own  path  and  the  outlets  of  the  sky."  In  reply  to 
the  despondencies  of  his  religious  disbeliefs,  he  had 
accepted  as  an  inspiration,  the  high  advice:  "Seek 
not  the  Spirit,  if  it  hide  inexorable  to  thy  zeal.  Say 
'Here  am  I;  here  will  I  abide,  forever  to  myself 
soothfast;  go  thou,  sweet  Heaven,  or  at  thy  pleasure 
stay!'  Already  Heaven  with  thee  its  lot  has  cast, 
for  only  it  can  absolutely  deal."  And  all  this  poet 
ical  transcendentalism  had  gone  to  his  head,  like  a 
white  wine,  and  he  had  begun  to  live  on  it,  intoxicated 
with  enthusiasm,  and  exalted  above  the  "low  pru 
dence"  and  the  small  facts  of  life. 

When  he  learned  from  her  that  Conroy  was  calling 
to   see   her   frequently   in   the   evenings,   he   had   no 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  115 

jealousy  of  his  cousin — none  even  when  he  heard  that 
she  and  Miss  Kimball  had  gone  to  the  theater  with 
Conroy,  or  when  he  found  that  Conroy  had  given  her 
the  rose  which  she  wore  one  morning  in  her  coat. 

' '  He  's  a  funny  boy,  is  n  't  he  ? "    she  said. 

He  nodded,  admiring  her  silently. 

"He  seems  to  be  having— a  'gay'  time  at  college," 
she  went  on. 

"Yes.     That  is  what  he  came  for." 

A  moment  later,  she  added:  "Mother  says  so  many 
boys  at  college  learn  to— to  drink—"  She  blushed — 
"and  gamble." 

He  looked  up  quickly.  "But  he  's  not  that  sort, 
is  he?" 

' '  That  's  what  I  told  mother !  She  seemed  to  think 
—but  you  '11  look  after  him,  won't  you?" 

"What  has  happened?" 

' '  Why,  nothing  !  Really  nothing, ' '  she  cried.  ' '  It 
was  just  that  mother  spoke  of  boys  doing  those  things 
at  college.  And  I  knew  that  you  wouldn't  let  him 
do  them,  if  you  knew.  And  that  's  why  I  mentioned 
it — really." 

"What  made  your  mother  speak  of  it  at  all?"  he 
asked  suspiciously. 

"She— she  had  a  brother  once,  who  went  to  college 
and—" 

"Oh."  He  thought  it  over.  "No.  Con's  all  right. 
He  '11  take  care  of  himself."  He  was  flattered  by 
her  trust  in  him.  "I  see  him  in  the  halls  almost 
every  day." 

He  did  not  say  that  he  had  been  avoiding  Conroy, 


116  DON-A-DREAMS 

having  refused  a  half-hearted  invitation  to  go  call 
ing  with  him  again.  And  he  was  not  shrewd  enough 
to  see  that  Conroy  had  been  avoiding  him.  He  only 
envied  his  cousin's  opportunities  of  hearing  her 
music;  and  when  she  told  him  that  her  mother,  at 
last,  had  gone  to  a  southern  winter  resort  for  the 
next  two  months,  he  said :  "  I  wish  they  'd  all  go  away. 
I  want  to  hear  you  play  again,  and  I  can't  hear  you 
when  they  're  all— talking. " 

"I  wish  they  would,  too,"  she  replied.  "They 
treat  me  as  if  they  thought  I  was  a  baby  that 
should  n  't  be  left  alone  with  anyone  for  five  minutes ! 
They  're  speaking,  now,  of  going  to  the  Conversat— 
without  ever  asking  me  whether  I  should  like  to  go. 
I  suppose  mother  has  been  telling  them  I  'm  too 
young  to  be  going  out." 

"I  suppose." 

"Are  you  going?" 

He  shook  his  head.  "No." 

As  he  was  parting  from  her,  she  said:  "If  they  all 
go  to  the  Conversat  without  me,  I  '11  just  play  to  you, 
that  night,  as  much  as  you  like." 

HE  passed  the  next  few  days  in  a  prayerful  ex 
pectation  that  they  would  go  to  the  affair  without 
her.  They  did  so ;  and  they  were  not  more  than  well 
out  of  the  house,  before  he  rang  the  bell  and  heard 
her  open  the  inside  door  and  call  back  to  the  maid: 
"I  '11  go,  Maggie." 

She  received  him  under  the  red  gas-globe  of  the 
outer  hall  with  a  mischievous  affectation  of  surprise. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  117 

"Why,  how  do  you  do?  Aren't  you  going  to  the 
Conversat  ? ' '  And  he  entered  as  if  he  had  been  Romeo 
just  arrived  by  way  of  his  rope  ladder. 

She  had  been  sitting  for  her  photograph  on  the 
previous  day,  and  she  had  put  on  again  the  pretty 
dress  which  she  had  worn  for  the  picture.  It  was  cut 
low  and  square  in  the  neck,  to  show  a  throat  that  was 
as  round  as  a  bird's,  girlishly  white  and  soft,  and  to 
him  so  tenderly  beautiful  that  it  took  him  with  a 
blushing  catch  of  the  breath  which  she  saw  and  smiled 
at  as  she  had  smiled  at  her  reflection  in  the  mirror. 
She  patted  the  butterfly  bow  which  she  had  arranged 
as  if  it  had  lighted  artlessly  on  top  of  her  young 
coiffure,  thanking  him  for  his  admiration  with  tri 
umphant  eyes.  ''This  is  so  unexpected!"  she 
said. 

"Won't  she  tell?"  he  whispered. 

She  understood  that  he  referred  to  the  maid.  She 
set  the  bow  dancing  with  a  spirited  shake  of  her  head. 
"I  '11  tell  on  her  if  she  does. ' '  When  they  had  passed 
out  of  the  hall,  through  the  curtains,  she  explained 
in  a  choked  undertone:  "There  's  someone  in  the 
kitchen  with  her.  She  's  awfully  funny.  They  won't 
let  her  have  callers.  She  says  they  're  a  'lot  of  old 
maids'!" 

He  wiped  the  melted  snow  from  his  eyelashes  and 
his  eyebrows,  laughing  in  his  handkerchief. 

"I  did  n't  dare  light  all  the  lights,"  she  went  on, 
under  her  voice,  "for  fear  the  neighbors  would  see 
it  and  say  something.  Isn't  it  a  joke!"  And  then 
with  the  same  gaiety  but  loudly,  fluttering  across  the 


118  DON-A-DREAMS 

room  with  a  suddenness  that  bewildered  him,  she 
cried:  ''How  do  you  like  my  photographs?  See!— 
They  're  just  the  proofs  I  'm  to  choose  from." 

The  single  jet  of  gas  above  him  did  not  give  light 
enough  for  him  to  make  them  out,  and  she  led  him 
over  to  the  piano-lamp  that  was  glowing  secretly  un 
der  its  rose-leaf  shade  in  a  far  corner.  He  was  smil 
ing  when  he  looked  at  the  first  picture;  she  enjoyed 
the  change  of  his  expression.  "Do  you  like  that 
one?"  she  asked. 

Did  he  like  it!  He  gazed  at  it  as  he  would  have 
gazed  at  her  if  he  could  have  had  her  unconscious 
of  his  scrutiny  and  undefended  by  the  distracting 
challenge  of  her  eyes.  She  was  posed  glancing  aside, 
in  the  shy  demureness  he  most  loved  in  her,  her  neck 
turned  prettily,  her  ear  showing  in  its  nest  of  brown 
hair  as  round  and  white  and  fragile  as  a  little  field- 
bird's  egg.  After  waiting  a  moment  for  his  answer, 
she  gave  him  the  next  picture,  almost  embarrassed  by 
his  devouring  silence;  and  he  blinked  at  the  roguish 
eyes  which  met  his  full  under  level  eyebrows  with  a 
twinkling  gravity  as  if  trying  to  deny  the  smile  that 
curled  the  corners  of  her  mouth.  "That  's  the  one 
I  like,"  she  said,  standing  beside  him  to  look  at  it  over 
his  arm.  "That— and  this." 

The  last  was  a  more  formal  portrait,  a  three- 
quarters  view,  with  the  chin  up  saucily  and  the  ex 
pression  one  of  young  alertness  and  sly  penetration. 
"I  've  decided  on  those  two— the  last  two." 

He  turned  back  to  the  first.  "May  I  .  .  have  this, 
then?" 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  119 

"But  it  will  fade  out,  in  the  light.  It  's  just  a 
proof." 

"I  '11  keep  it— where  it  won't." 

His  tone  sent  her  to  the  piano,  nervously,  and  she 
sat  down  at  the  keyboard,  turning  her  back.  "Well," 
she  said,  running  up  the  scale. 

He  drew  a  long  breath  of  gratification,  and  passing 
his  hand  over  the  picture  to  brush  a  speck  of  dust 
from  it,  caressingly,  he  laid  it  between  two  letters 
taken  from  his  inside  pocket,  and  put  it  away  with 
the  warm  flush  of  a  girl  hiding  a  love  letter  in  the 
bosom  of  her  bodice.  She  had  begun  to  play  a  light 
air.  He  sat  down  to  put  his  elbows  on  his  knees  and 
his  chin  in  his  hands;  and  he  remained  so,  as  if  the 
music  were  a  bright  stream  flowing  past  him  and  he 
were  staring  at  it,  full  of  his  thoughts. 

It  brought  him  back,  at  last,  to  something  of  her 
own  sparkling  mood;  and  when  she  had  finished  it, 
he  said :  "  I  wish  I  could  play  like  that. ' ' 

"Come  on  and  try,"  she  laughed,  moving  aside  on 
the  bench. 

He  hesitated.     "Is  there  room?" 

"There  should  be.  It  's  for  the  Misses  Kimball's 
duets." 

"Oh."  He  came  awkwardly.  She  invited  him 
again  by  gathering  in  her  skirts  beside  her.  He  sat 
down. 

"Now.  Put  your  hands  so.  I  may  have  to  earn 
my  living  this  way  some  day.  My  first  pupil!"  And 
with  a  severe  "One— two!  One— two!  One— two!" 
she  began  the  exercises  for  the  first  two  fingers. 


120  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Knuckles  down,  sir."  She  gave  them  a  tap. 
''Wrists  up.  Forearms  on  a  level  with  the  keys. 
Again!  One — two!  One — two!  One — " 

"I  liked  the  other  things  you  played,  better,"  he 
joked. 

"There  you  are!"  she  said.  "They  always  want 
'pieces'  right  away.  One— two!  One— two!  You 
must  perfect  your  technique  first." 

And  with  a  stern  pretence  of  seriousness,  that 
trembled  always  on  the  verge  of  laughter,  she  put 
his  clumsy  fingers  through  their  drill,  in  a  teasing 
vein  of  coquetry  that  made  him  long  to  catch  her 
hands  and  crush  them,  as  one  longs  to  catch  up  a 
frisking  kitten  and  cuddle  it  fiercely. 

"Now,"  she  said,  "I  '11  give  you  your  first  piece— 
'The  Blue  Alsatian  Mountains'." 

It  was  at  last  too  tantalizing  to  be  endured,  and  he 
held  her  hands  and  said  shakily  "No.  Please  play. 
Play  that — 'nocturne'  was  it? — the  one  you  played 
first  that  night." 

"This  one?"     She  freed  her  fingers  and  began  it. 

"Yes." 

He  did  not  leave  his  seat  Reside  her,  and  she  wove 
the  magic  of  that  melody  under  his  eyes,  casting  the 
spell  of  it  on  him  as  softly  as  a  breath  perfumed 
with  the  fragrance  of  her  garments  and  warm  with 
the  vitality  of  her  abundant  young  life.  He  was  in 
the  clutch  of  instincts  which  he  could  not  understand 
and  which  he  was  afraid  to  yield  to,  drawn  toward 
her  by  a  terrible  longing  but  not  daring  to  let  him 
self  go  because  he  feared  to  put  all  his  hopes  to  a 


THE  DAY-DREAMEE  121 

disastrous  test  again,  prematurely;  and  above  all,  he 
was  fighting  for  his  transcendentalism  and  willfully 
in  awe  of  his  ideal. 

He  rose  from  the  music  bench  and  began  to  walk 
about  the  room,  trying  to  overcome  his  agitation.  He 
did  not  know  himself,  and  he  was  bewildered  by  the 
loss  of  his  self-control.  His  under-jaw  was  trembling 
in  his  cheek;  his  throat  ached.  When  she  looked  at 
him  over  her  shoulder,  with  her  hands  lingering  on 
the  last  notes,  he  was  so  pale  and  distressed  that  she 
cried:  "What  's  the  matter?  Are  you  ill?" 

"No,  no,"  he  stammered.    "I  'm— " 

"What  is  it?"  She  came  over  to  him.  He  was 
standing  beside  a  chair,  wiping  the  moist  palm  of 
his  hand  on  his  coat  sleeve  in  a  fumbling  nervousness 
that  alarmed  her.  She  took  him  by  the  wrist,  to 
stop  him.  "What  is  it?"  He  put  his  other  arm 
about  her  shoulders  and  drew  her  to  him,  his  face 
twitching;  and  he  frightened  her  so  that  she  stepped 
back  at  once,  confused,  and  blushing,  and  concerned 
for  him. 

After  a  helpless  silence,  he  said  "I  'm — all  right. 
...  I  was  dizzy."  He  looked  at  the  chair  beside  him. 
"I  guess  I  '11  sit  down." 

She  returned  to  the  piano  and  began  to  play  again 
to  cover  her  bewilderment.  They  passed  the  rest  of 
the  evening  with  the  width  of  the  room  between  them. 
And  he  replied  to  her  with  a  labored  deliberation, 
pausing  in  the  middle  of  his  sentences  to  take  breath, 
in  a  way  that  reminded  her  of  an  amateur  singer's 
faulty  "phrasing." 


322  DON-A-DREAMS 

After  he  had  gone,  she  remained  seated  there,  her 
hands  clasped  between  her  knees,  in  a  girlish  attitude 
of  puzzled  meditation.  When  she  smiled  doubtfully, 
it  was  because  she  recalled  his  thin  fingers  on  the 
piano  keys  and  his  bony  wrists  exposed  below  his  coat 
sleeves  by  the  outstretching  of  his  arms.  When  she 
frowned,  it  was  at  the  recurring  thought  of  his 
strangeness,  his  moodiness,  his  failure  to  rise  to  her 
innocent  coquetry  and  good  spirits.  When  she 
blushed,  blinking  uncertainly,  it  was  at  the  memory 
of  that  sudden  fluttering  of  his  eyelids  and  the  ap 
proach  of  a  caress  which  she  had  suspected  but  which 
she  could  not  be  sure,  now,  that  he  had  attempted. 
At  last,  rising  quickly,  she  took  up  her  photographs, 
as  if  to  put  away  from  her  the  thought  of  this  even 
ing  that  had  been  such  a  perplexing  failure;  and  she 
stood  smiling  down,  with  a  pleased  appreciation,  on 
the  camera's  reflection  of  her  pretty  face. 


VIII 

THAT  began  the  struggle  between  his  romantic 
ideals  and  his  natural  instincts;  and  it  began  a 
week  of  constraint  and  strangeness  in  his  manner 
toward  her;  and  it  ended  by  making  her  fear  that 
he  was  bored  by  her,  that  he  was  no  longer  interested 
in  her  small  talk,  walking  with  her  through  the  melt 
ing  snows  or  freezing  rains  of  March  in  a  depressing 
silence  that  was  either  absent-minded  or  worse.  She 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  123 

contrasted  the  stupidity  of  these  meetings  with  the 
gallantry  of  his  cousin's  evenings,  and  she  knew  that 
the  difference  was  not  in  her.  And  Don,  unable  to 
respond  to  her  little  coquetries,  because  he  was  cling 
ing  to  the  high  solemnity  of  adoration  which  he 
brought  to  her  from  his  solitary  thoughts,  felt  the 
estrangement  between  them  and  worried  over  it  in  a 
silence  that  increased  her  discouragement. 

When,  at  the  end  of  the  week,  she  found  herself 
with  a  cold  which  kept  her  from  her  lesson,  she  made 
no  effort  to  let  him  know  that  he  would  not  find  her 
coming  home  at  the  usual  hour.  She  told  herself 
that  if  he  wished  to  break  with  her,  it  would  serve 
as  an  excuse;  and  if  he  did  not,  it  would  bring  him 
to  his  senses.  With  a  young  girl's  cruelty,  she  was 
willing  to  punish  affection  in  order  to  prove  it;  and 
she  remained  in  the  house,  reading  her  books  and 
practising  her  music,  and  noting  with  a  somewhat 
guilty  satisfaction  that  it  was  storming  on  him  out 
of  doors. 

Don  passed  and  repassed  the  gate  of  the  Conserva 
tory  a  dozen  times  in  the  half  hour  that  he  waited 
for  her,  wet  to  the  knees  with  the  cold  slant  of  rain 
that  blew  under  his  umbrella,  chilled  with  loitering 
and  downcast  with  disappointment.  He  returned  to 
his  room,  as  miserable  as  if  he  had  missed  his  dinner, 
and  sat  down  in  his  wet  clothes,  wondering  what  had 
happened  to  her,  and  unable  to  get  his  mind  away 
from  the  gap  which  her  absence  had  left  in  his  day. 
It  was  not  until  he  had  had  his  supper  and  shut  him 
self  in  with  his  books,  that  he  regained  his  usual 


124  DON-A-DEEAMS 

cheerfulness  in  the  expectation  of  seeing  her  on  the 
morrow;  and  he  went  to  bed  early  to  escape  the 
shivering  dampness  of  his  room  and  to  hasten  the 
arrival  of  their  next  meeting  by  sleeping  through  as 
much  as  possible  of  the  interval. 

Although  he  suffered,  next  day,  with  a  heavy  ach 
ing  in  his  back  and  his  legs,  he  went  to  intercept  her 
earlier  than  usual,  in  the  fear  that  he  might  have 
been  late  on  the  previous  afternoon ;  and  in  a  piercing 
wind  that  pricked  him  as  if  with  tiny  needles  of  ice 
through  his  clothes,  he  watched  for  her  for  an  hour, 
until  the  horrible  certainty  that  she  must  be  ill  and 
unable  to  send  him  word  hurried  him  home  in  a  panic 
of  anxiety,  resolved  to  call  and  inquire  for  her  that 
night.  By  this  time  his  head  was  aching  with  the 
fever  of  influenza  and  he  was  half  choked  with  a  sore 
throat.  He  gulped  his  supper,  unable  to  taste  it, 
and  hurried  out  to  get  Conroy  to  accompany  him  to 
the  Kimball  house. 

It  was  a  dripping  black  night,  foggy  and  cold, 
with  hidden  pools  in  the  crossings  and  feeble  street 
lamps  to  see  them  by.  He  splashed  through  them 
in  anxious  haste,  holding— with  a  bare  hand— his 
overcoat  closed  on  the  aperture  of  a  missing  button 
at  the  neck.  He  made  a  short  cut  across  the  college 
campus  through  the  sodden  grass,  and  came  to  the 
Residence  wing  like  the  midnight  caller  for  a 
country  doctor  in  a  matter  of  life  and  death.  He 
saw  a  light  in  Conroy 's  window  as  he  swung  under 
the  arch  that  opened  on  the  "quadrangle."  He 
heard  a  shout  of  songs  as  he  sprang  up  the  stairs 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  125 

of  the  "house"  in  which  Conroy  lived;  and  when  he 
came  to  his  cousin's  door,  he  knocked  before  he  un 
derstood  that  the  singing  was  in  Conroy 's  room. 

There  was  a  sudden  silence,  inside.  It  was  followed 
by  a  hasty  shuffle.  In  a  moment,  someone  shouted: 
"Come  in!" 

He  opened  the  door  on  a  group  of  students  seated 
at  a  table,  with  pipes  and  cigarettes,  in  the  circle 
of  a  lamp-light  that  was  so  strong  in  their  eyes  they 
could  not  see  him  in  the  shadow.  He  stood  on  the 
threshold.  "Who  is  it?"  Conroy  asked,  peering 
against  the  light. 

"It 's— I  want  to  speak  to  you  a  minute,   Con." 

' '  Oh,  it  's  you !  Come  in  here,  you  monk,  you  old 
hermit!  All  right,  boys."  He  put  back  on  the  table 
an  ale  bottle  which  he  had  hidden  under  his  chair, 
and  the  others  brought  out  their  glasses  from  between 
their  knees  and  their  playing  cards  from  their  pockets. 
"Come  in  here  and  shut  the  door.  Get  us  another 
glass,  Pittsey.  Come  in  here  and  shut  the  door.  Come 
on.  Come  in  here." 

Don  obeyed  from  mere  irresolution,  and  his  cousin 
welcomed  him  with  a  flushed  hilarity  which  Don,  for 
the  moment,  attributed  to  nervousness.  "Dry  your 
self  at  the  fire.  Bring  another  bottle  of  'pop,'  Pitt 
sey.  Whose  ante  is  it?" 

Someone  replied,  contemptuously:  "Give  me  three 
cards.  We  're  all  in  a  week  ago." 

"All  right,"  Conroy  went  on,  unabashed.  "Here 
goes.  They  're  off  in  a  bunch.  Hang  your  coat  on 
the  floor,  Don." 


126  DON-A-DREAMS 

But  Don,  standing  before  the  blaze  in  the  grate, 
with  his  back  to  the  table,  was  facing  a  smiling  photo 
graph  of  Margaret  Richardson  on  the  mantelpiece. 
It  was  a  picture  finished  and  mounted,  and  not  a 
mere  "proof";  he  remembered  that,  on  the  afternoon 
on  which  he  had  last  seen  her,  she  had  said  she  expected 
her  photographs  to  come  home  on  the  following  day; 
and  he  understood  that  Conroy  must  have  seen  her 
since  that  time.  He  took  down  the  picture  and  turned  it 
over  to  find  it  dated  in  her  handwriting  "March  22." 
Then  she  had  not  been  ill. 

"Look  out  there,  McLean,"  one  of  the  boys  chaffed. 
"Gregg  's  trying  to  get  away  with  your  girl." 

The  boy  who  was  named  Pittsey — a  youth  of  liter 
ary  pretensions,  in  a  dressing  gown — called  out: 
' '  Which  one  ?  Not  the  prettiest  girl  he  ever  kissed ! ' ' 

Conroy  attempted  to  silence  them  with  a  frantic 
expression  of  face.  They  shouted  gleefully,  scenting 
game,  and  prepared  to  pursue  it  with  all  the  bar 
barism  natural  to  the  young  collegian. 

"Don't  be  shy  now,  McLean." 

"A  kiss  and  a  cuddle,  wasn't  it?" 

"It  's  the  girl  that  plays  the  piano  with  one  hand 
while  he  holds  the  other.  Give  him  another  pint  of 
pop  and  he  '11  tell  us  all  about  it  again." 

Don  turned,  horrified.  Conroy  was  trying  to  carry 
an  expression  of  unconscious  innocence,  but  it  broke 
in  a  befuddled  and  foolish  smile.  "Oh  shut  up,  you 
clams,"  he  said.  "That  's  not  the  girl." 

They  howled.  ' ' See  him  blush ! "  " Who  's  a  liar ?' ' 
' '  Did  n  't  you  tell  us,  when  you  brought  in  that 
picture—" 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  127 

One  of  the  boys  rose  oratorically.  "Gentlemen, 
this  is  a  question  of  veracity  which,  I  may  say,  affects 
us  all.  Either  the  accused  did  or  did  not  kiss  the 
lady.  If  he  did  not,  then  he  is  guilty  of  slander, 
false  witness,  breach  of  truth  and  attempted  oscular 
embezzlement,  and  he  owes  us  and  the  photograph  an 
apology."  (In  vain  Conroy  tried  to  stop  him.) 
"His  present  manner  is  the  demeanor  of  guilt.  I 
move  that  if  he  did  not  kiss  said  maiden  lady,  he  be 
compelled  to  go  down  on  his  knees  before  the  counter 
feit  presentment  thereof  and  sing  the  Doxology. " 

Conroy  attempted  to  escape,  but  those  nearest 
caught  him  before  he  was  free  of  his  chair  and  forced 
him  down  in  it  and  held  him  there.  "Oh,  say,  fel 
lows,"  he  pleaded,  "don't  be  a  lot  of  d— " — 

The  others  closed  in  on  him,  laughing  like  a  circle 
of  savages  about  a  torture.  It  was  evident  from  their 
manner  that  while  they  accepted  Conroy 's  hospitality, 
they  were  accustomed  to  make  him  the  butt  of  their 
sport.  "Guilty  or  not  guilty?" 

"None  of  your  business,"  he  gasped. 

The  orator  raised  his  voice.  "The  prisoner  refuses 
to  plead.  This  is  a  case  for  the  thirty-third  degree 
as  it  is  administered  to  Freshmen.  Will  someone 
kindly  bring  a  hair-brush.  Remove  the  prisoner's—" 

Conroy  screamed  "Not  guilty!" 

Then  to  an  accompaniment  of  uproarious  laughter 
and  in  a  confusion  of  voices  and  above  a  continual 
scuffling  and  crowding  for  place,  the  examination 
continued : 

"Did  you,  or  did  you  not,  kiss  the  same  and  afore 
said  maiden  lady?" 


128  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Yes." 

"Where?" 

"Oh,  go  to  grass." 

"On  the  ear?" 

Conroy  did  not  answer.  A  dozen  willing  hands 
attacked  the  buttons  of  his  waistcoat.  "No!"  he 
shouted. 

"On  the  eye?" 

"No." 

"On  the  mouth?" 

There  was  no  answer.  Another  attack  on  his  but 
tons  brought  out  a  frantic  "Yes!" 

The  orator  reached  a  "mortar-board"  and  put  it 
on  as  if  it  had  been  the  "black  cap"  of  a  hanging 
judge.  "The  prisoner  is  convicted.  He  has  insolently 
and  without  warrant  impugned  the  veracity  of  this 
august  body.  He  is  condemned  to  be  taken  from  this 
place  to  the  mantelpiece  and  there  compelled  to  go 
down  on  his  knees  and  imprint  a  chaste  salute  upon 
the  lips  of  the  lady's  photograph  in  our  united 
presence.  Pittsey,  you  will  hold  the  photograph." 

But  the  photograph  had  disappeared,  and  Donald 
had  gone  with  it. 

HE  rang  the  Kimball  bell  and  faced  the  arrival  of 
the  maid  in  a  tense  tremble.  "May  I— Is  Miss 
Richardson  in?  I  have  something— a  message  I  wish 
to  give  her— if  she  's  not  too  ill." 

The  maid  held  the  door  open.  "She  's  not  so  sick. 
Won't  you  come  in?" 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  129 

He  entered  the  vestibule.  "No.  I  can't  wait.  I  'm 
too  wet,  I  '11  stay  here.  Tell  her  Gregg—" 

She  caught  the  suppressed  excitement  of  his  manner, 
and  hurried  away  without  closing  the  door,  alarmed 
by  the  prospect  of  some  bad  news  for  the  girl,  whom 
she  liked. 

He  remained  staring  at  a  tiny  stream  of  water  that 
had  trickled  from  some  wet  umbrellas  in  the  rack  and 
shone  on  the  linoleum  in  a  pool  as  red  as  blood  under 
the  light  of  the  crimson  gas-globe  overhead. 

' '  Why ! — Won 't  you  come  in  ? " 

He  looked  up   at  her  slowly  and  shook  his  head. 
"I  've  been  over  with  Conroy.     They  had  this  pic 
ture."     He  held  it  out  shakily.     "They  were  making 
fun  of  it—  " 
."I  don't  .  .  .  understand." 

His  face  was  drawn  in  a  white  mask  that  showed 
like  a  grotesque  in  the  crimson  light.  His  eyes  were 
glittering.  He  asked  hoarsely:  "Did  he?" 

"Did  he  what?" 

"Did  he  ...  kiss  you?" 

She  turned  over  the  photograph.  Then  she  looked 
up  with  a  nervous  smile  that  was  a  faint  attempt  to 
return  the  whole  matter  to  the  frivolous  light  in  which 
she  had  seen  it.  "Well,  he— I  couldn't  help  it.  He— 
We  were  .  .  .  cutting  up." 

He  turned  around  without  a  word  and  started  out 
the  open  door. 

"Wait!"  she  said  sharply.  "I  don't  understand- 
Why  do  you  come  here  with — 


130  DON-A-DREAMS 

He  answered,  without  lifting  his  head:  "He  was 
boasting  of  it  to  a  lot  of  boys.  I  didn't  believe  it. 
I  didn't  believe  you  would — do  that  sort  of  thing." 

"Well!"  she  cried  defiantly.  "You  tried  to  do  it 
too!" 

"Yes,"  he  said.    "I  tried  to  do  it  too.    Good-bye." 

She  followed  him  out  to  the  darkness  of  the  porch 
impetuously,  and  caught  him  by  the  sleeve.  "Wait," 
she  said.  "You  can't— I  won't  have  you  come  here, 
like  this.  What  is  it?  How  dare  you  .  .  .  accuse  me! 
I—" 

He  was  so  overwhelmed  with  the  shame  of  that 
scene  in  Conroy's  room  that  he  could  not  argue  with 
her,  he  could  not  look  at  her.  He  said,  in  a  low, 
stifled  voice:  "You  shouldn't  have  done  it.  I  didn't 
think  you— They  made  fun  of  you.  He  was  boasting 
of  it."  He  shuddered  with  cold  and  sickness  and 
misery.  "I  thought  you  were— above  that." 

She  flung  his  arm  from  her.  "Go  away!"  she 
choked.  "Go  away!  I  '11  never  see  you— I  '11  never 
speak  to  you  again."  He  went  down  the  steps.  She 
slammed  the  door  on  him.  He  walked  home,  stiffly 
erect,  through  a  cold  rain  that  pelted  him  with  deri 
sion  and  the  downfall  of  his  ideals. 

It  was  to  him  as  bitter  a  disenchantment  as  personal 
grossness  and  infidelity  and  an  open  scandal  would 
have  been  to  an  older  man.  He  returned  to  the  dese 
crated  solitude  of  his  room — the  room  that  had  been 
the  sanctuary  of  his  worship— like  a  priest  to  a 
wrecked  and  empty  altar.  Without  lighting  his 
lamp,  he  threw  himself  on  his  bed  in  his  clothes,  shak- 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  131 

ing  with  chills  and  fever,  the  pulse  beating  in  his  ears, 
his  brain  swimming,  his  mind  numb  with  exhaustion 
and  staggering  in  the  whirl  of  delirium. 

There  was  the  small  trickle  of  blood  forming  in  a 
pool  on  the  linoleum  of  the  vestibule  floor,  and  he 
stared  at  it  dully,  wondering  what  she  would  say 
when  he  told  her  that  he  had  killed  his  cousin.  .  .  . 
His  father,  on  the  bench,  put  on  a  black  ''mortar 
board"  solemnly  and  having  condemned  him  to 
death,  borrowed  a  match  from  the  grinning  jury  and 
struck  a  light  for  his  pipe.  .  .  From  the  barred  win 
dow  of  his  prison,  he  saw  his  mother  in  her  invalid 
chair,  with  little  Mary  in  her  arms  and  Frankie  at 
her  side,  going  to  the  execution,  his  father  wheeling 
her,  a  picnic  basket  at  her  feet;  and  she  looked  up 
at  him  with  a  face  of  grief  that  set  him  screaming 
and  sobbing  frantically  and  beating  on  the  floor  with 
his  fists.  Someone  knocked  on  the  door  of  his  cell, 
and  called  "Donnie?  Donnie?"  in  Nannie's  voice. 
There  was  a  light  in  the  doorway.  He  sat  up  in  bed 
and  saw  Mrs.  Stewart,  his  boarding-house  mistress, 
with  a  lamp  in  her  hand,  all  in  white,  a  shawl  over 
her  shoulders,  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  He 
said  weakly,  "I  'm  sick." 

The  rest  was  a  hurry  of  women  in  the  room— some 
one  taking  off  his  shoes,  a  steaming  glass  at  his  lips, 
a  mustard  plaster  on  his  chest — and  in  the  wan  light 
of  the  morning  a  man  with  a  black  beard  saying: 
"Nothing  much  yet.  A  touch  of  pneumonia  perhaps. 
Bring  me  a  glass  of  water.  .  .  One  of  these  every 
half  hour  for  the  next  four  hours.  Two  of  the  others 


132  DON-A-DREAMS 

every  hour  until  further  orders.     .     .     La  grippe  prin 
cipally.  He  '11  be  all  right." 


IX 


HE  lay,  for  the  next  few  days,  dosed  with  quinine 
and  aconite,  his  ears  ringing,  his  eyes  two  balls  of 
pain  in  his  head,  his  body  so  sore  that  he  turned 
himself  in  bed  as  carefully  as  a  man  just  released 
from  the  rack.  And  every  aching  minute  of  thought 
made  the  situation  clearer  to  him.  He  had  lost  her, 
and  he  had  lost  her  to  Conroy.  She  had  never  been 
more  than  friendly;  the  last  week  had  been  marked 
by  a  growing  indifference;  she  had  avoided  him, 
finally,  when  he  went  to  meet  her ;  and  she  had  received 
Conroy,  had  given  him  her  photograph,  had  allowed 
him  to  kiss  her,  and  had  turned  angrily  on  him  when 
he  came  to  accuse  her  of  it.  How  dare  he  accuse  her ! 
What  right  had  he  to  accuse  her!  She  would  never 
speak  to  him,  she  would  never  see  him,  again. 

The  pang  of  it  was  not  the  "pang  of  disprized 
love " ;  he  had  always  known  that  she  did  not  prize 
his  clumsy  devotion.  And  it  was  not  the  sting  of 
wounded  vanity — which  is  so  large  a  portion  of  a 
rejected  lover's  smart— for  Don  was  neither  an  egotist 
nor  a  sentimentalist.  It  was  the  pain  of  a  boyish  de 
spair,  of  a  lost  ideal,  of  a  wrecked  hope,  of  a  maimed 
life.  He  saw  himself  living  blank  days,  in  aimlessness 
and  regret.  He  knew  that  he  could  never  recover 
from  the  loss  of  her;  he  would  bear  the  scar  of  it 


THE  DAY-DREAMEE  133 

to  his  lonely  grave.  He  was  too  old  to  take  root  in 
a  new  affection.  Yes,  he  was  almost  twenty,  now.  It 
was  too  late.  He  was  a  failure  and  a  castaway  in  life. 

By  the  time  he  was  convalescent,  he  was  also  re 
signed,  though  he  sat  in  his  room  like  a  life-prisoner 
in  his  cell.  The  familiar  walls,  in  their  faded  paper 
streaked  with  the  leak  of  rains,  shut  out  the  world 
that  had  persecuted  him.  He  would  study  here,  happy 
among  his  books;  he  would  become  a  university  pro 
fessor,  devote  his  life  to  learning,  and  be  safe  behind 
grey-stone  walls  covered  with  ivy.  One  room  would 
suffice  for  him— even  a  room  like  this,  though  it 
should  have  a  study  chair  and  a  desk  like  his  father's 
and  a  student's  couch,  instead  of  this  old  oval  parlor 
table,  this  dining-room  chair  upholstered  in  imitation 
leather  and  sagging  in  the  seat,  and  this  yellow, 
boarding-house  bed,  machine-carved,  with  a  varnish 
scalded  to  a  milky  white  where  the  cleanly  house 
keeper  had  used  boiling  water  on  it.  He  would  never 
be  happy  again,  but  he  would  be  quiet  and  contented. 

It  was  in  this  mood  that  he  received  Conroy — sitting 
with  a  black  bandage  over  his  eyes,  for  the  influenza 
had  weakened  them  and  he  was  not  allowed  to  use 
them  yet.  And  Conroy,  guiltily  silent  about  the  scene 
in  the  room  at  Residence,  did  not  tell  him  that  Mar 
garet  had  refused  to  see  him,  too,  as  a  result  of  that 
incident;  he  contented  himself  with  awkward  inqui 
ries  about  Don's  departing  pains,  and  left  a  bag  of 
oranges  as  a  peace  offering  when  he  went. 

Don  ate  them  stolidly.  He  had  seen  enough  in  his 
cousin's  room  to  understand  that  Conroy  was  wasting 
himself  in  dissipations,  and  doing  it  with  that  ridic- 


134  DON-A-D-REAMS 

ulous  bravado  of  college  boys  who  take  to  cards  and 
beer  bottles  as  a  schoolboy  takes  to  tobacco.  But,  after 
all,  that  was  a  part  of  the  life  which  Conroy  had 
chosen,  and  it  was  his  own  affair.  He  could  fight  his 
own  battles.  He  had  her  to  help  him  now! 

"Well,  my  young  man,"  the  doctor  said,  "I  am 
leaving  you  a  tonic.  Take  more  exercise  with  it 
and  less  books.  You  're  not  within  fifteen  pounds  of 
your  proper  weight,  and  if  I  'm  called  in  here  again, 
I  '11  send  you  home  to  your  parents.  The  day  after 
to-morrow,  if  it  's  bright,  you  may  go  out  of  doors — 
and  stay  out."  He  tock  Don  by  the  shoulders  and 
shook  him  playfully.  "The  man  who  built  this  room 
did  n  't  suppose  anyone  would  be  fool  enough  to  try 
to  live  in  it,  do  you  understand  ? ' ' 
Don  laughed. 

"Well,  if  your  eyes  bother  you,  come  and  see  me. 
Good-bye." 

He  passed  through  the  doorway  and  out  of  Don's 
life,  as  doctors  do. 

She  did  not  write.  When  he  went  out,  he  did  not 
try  to  meet  her.  He  returned  to  his  old  round  of 
lectures,  library  studies,  solitary  walks  and  lonely 
evenings.  He  underlined,  in  his  volume  of  Emerson's 
poems,  the  verse : 

"Though  thou  loved  her  as  thyself, 
As  a  self  of  purer  clay, 
Though  her  parting  dims  the  day, 
Stealing  grace  from  all  alive, 
Heartily  know 
When  half -gods  go, 
The  gods  arrive." 


THE  DAY-DREAMEE  135 

WITH  a  robustness  of  spirit  which  had  once  charmed 
his  cousin  in  their  younger  days,  he  set  his  face  to  a 
new  future  and  a  new  ideal.  She  had  been  but  a  ' '  half  - 
god"  after  all.  Perhaps  some  day,  when  he  was  rich 
in  academic  honors  and  professorially  wise,  he  would 
meet  such  a  woman  as  he  had  thought  her  to  be — a 
woman  tall  and  dark  and  pale  whose  smile  would  al 
ways  be  somewhat  melancholy  and  who  would  see  life 
as  the  mystery  which  it  was  to  him.  Meanwhile,  the 
year's  examinations  were  approaching,  and  he  knew 
that  he  was  not  prepared  to  meet  them.  He  drank  his 
bitter  tonic  and  studied  doggedly. 

He  met  Conroy  in  the  corridors  as  often  as  ever,  and 
saw  that  the  young  gentleman's  eyes  were  frequently 
bloodshot,  his  color, bad  and  his  manner  nervous.  Com 
ing  out  of  the  college  grounds,  one  April  morning, 
he  saw  Margaret  approaching  him  at  a  distance,  slowly, 
and  he  turned  back,  wincing,  and  crossed  the  campus 
to  another  gate.  He  took  a  volume  of  Emerson  on  his 
walks,  and  read  under  the  pines,  on  the  side  of  one 
of  those  northeastern  ravines  which  the  heavy  snows 
had  made  impassable  to  him  since  the  early  winter. 
And  lying  on  his  back  under  the  branches,  he  shut 
his  eyes  on  the  light  and  projected  himself  upward 
past  the  sun  and  the  stars  and  the  entire  universe  as 
he  conceived  it,  till  these  were  all  flying  far  below 
him,  like  a  cloud  of  glittering  insects,  in  an  unceasing 
and  meaningless  whirl;  and  then  he  turned  himself 
around  suddenly  on  the  void  of  space,  and  tried  to 
imagine  where  all  these  tiny  creatures  had  flown  from, 
where  they  would  alight,  from  what  eggs  they  had 


136  DON-A-DREAMS 

« 

been  hatched,  and  in  what  nest ;  and  finding  them  afloat 
without  any  origin  which  his  imagination  could  pic 
ture — with  nothing  above  them,  nothing  below  them, 
and  on  all  sides  nothing  from  which  they  had  come 
or  to  which  they  could  return — a  fear  seized  him,  an 
almost  physical  fear  of  dropping,  as  if  in  the  darkness 
of  a  nightmare,  into  this  unfathomable  mystery  in 
the  midst  of  which  he  lived;  and  he  opened  his  eyes 
on  the  sunlight  with  a  start,  his  forehead  wet  with 
perspiration,  taking  his  breath  in  a  tremor  and  feel 
ing  the  round  world  swimming  below  him  like  a  great 
balloon  which  might,  at  any  moment,  burst  and  fall 
into  the  shuddering  depths  that  were  below  it. 

ONE  night,  late  in  April,  Conroy  came  into  the  room, 
took  off  his  brown  derby  and  his  spring  overcoat,  sat 
down  on  the  side  of  the  bed  and  said:  "Well,  I  've 
come  to  stay." 

Don  looked  up  at  him  and  closed  his  text-book. 
"What  do  you  mean?" 

"I  've  been  put  out  of  Residence. ' ' 

Don  raised  the  shade  of  his  lamp  to  get  the  light 
on  his  cousin's  face,  and  then  quickly  dropped  the 
shadow  down  over  him  again.  One  glimpse  of  the 
faltering  challenge  of  that  twisted  smile  was  sufficient. 
He  reached  his  pen-knife  and  began  snapping  the 
blade  back  and  forth  against  the  flat  of  his  thumb. 

"The  Dean's  been  after  me  ever  since  I  went  in — 
and  he  caught  me  last  night— celebrating  Pittsey's 
birthday— with  some  of  the  boys— the  sneak!  And  I 
told  him  he  was,  too,"  he  boasted,  "and  if  he  'd  said 


-  THE  DAY-DREAMER  137 

much  more  I  'd  've  run  him  out  of  the  room.  You  'd 
think  we  were  a  lot  of  girls  in  a  boarding-school. 
What  harm  is  there  in  a  game  of  cards?" 

"You  're  not  supposed  to  bring  .  .  .  liquor  into 
Residence,  are  you?" 

"And  that  's  another  thing!  We  're  old  enough 
to  take  care  of  ourselves,  and  we  've  as  much  right 
to  drink  what  we  like  as  he  has.  A  bottle  of  champagne 
is  n't  going  to  kill  us." 

"Have  n't  you  been  doing  too  much  of  that  sort 
of  thing?" 

"What  sort  of  thing?" 

"Beer,  champagne,  'pop'  generally." 

Conroy  stood  up.  "I  did  n't  come  here  to  be  lec 
tured  by  you,  either.  If  you  don't  want  me  here,  say 
so.  There  are  plenty  of  other  rooms." 

"Well."  Don  put  down  his  knife.  "You  're  old 
enough  to  know  what  you  're  doing.  I  've  said  all 
I  intend  to  say  about  it  ...  If  you  sleep  with  me 
to-night,  I  suppose  we  can  get  the  big  front  room 
to-morrow. ' ' 

Conroy  seated  himself  again  sulkily,  holding  an 
ankle  on  his  knee  and  frowning  at  the  floor. 

Don  asked:  "What  will  your  father  say?" 

"He  need  n't  know — unless  you  tell  him." 

Don  passed  the  insult  unanswered;  he  was  thinking 
of  Margaret.  Conroy  added  unexpectedly:  "You 
were  quick  enough  to  tell  her." 

"Yes.  .  .  You  need  n't  be  afraid.  I  '11  not  tell 
her." 

"A  lot  I  care  whether  you  do  or  not." 


138  DON-A-DREAMS 

Don  took  the  eyeshade  which  he  had  been  wearing 
at  work  since  his  illness,  and  put  it  on;  it  covered 
his  face  like  the  peak  of  a  cap  drawn  down  over  his 
eyes.  "I  only  told  her  because  I  did  n't  believe  it. 
If  I  had  supposed  it  was  true,  I  should  n't  have 
troubled  myself." 

Conroy  grunted.  "You  made  a  deuce  of  a  lot 
of  trouble  out  of  nothing." 

"That  's  all  the  thanks  I  got  for  it.  .  .  Where  's 
your  stuff?" 

"In  my  rooms." 

Thereafter,  they  talked  perfunctorily  about  moving 
their  trunks  and  making  their  arrangements  with  Mrs. 
Stewart;  but  the  tone  in  which  Don  had  spoken  about- 
the  "thanks"  he  had  received  for  his  interference  in 
the  affair  of  the  photograph,  stuck  in  Conroy 's 
thought;  and  when  they  were  undressing  for  bed  to 
gether,  in  a  more  friendly  sympathy,  he  asked  sud 
denly:  "When  did  you  see  her  last?" 

Don  replied:  "I  have  n't  seen  her  at  all." 

"Since  when?" 

"Since  that  night— with  the  photograph." 

After  a  silence,  Conroy  said:  "I  met  her  on  the 
street  while  you  were  sick,  and  told  her  what  was  the 
matter  with  you.  I  think  she  asked  because  she  was 
wondering  why  you  had  n't  been  around  to  call." 

"Well,  you  were  mistaken." 

"She  asked  me  again,  a  few  weeks  ago— at  a  public 
lecture. ' ' 

Don  said,  to  end  the  discussion:  "She  told  me,  that 
night,  that  she  'd  never  speak  to  me  again." 

Conroy  laughed.  ' '  Oh,  I  know.  She  told  me  that.  too. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  139 

She  got  over  her  'mad'  three  weeks  ago.  You  ought 
to  go  and  look  her  up." 

Don  blew  out  the  lamp,  abruptly,  without  replying, 
and  came  slowly  to  bed  where  he  lay  silent  with  his 
thoughts. 

But  Conroy,  moved  to  confidences  in  the  dark,  like 
a  schoolgirl  in  bed  with  her  room-mate,  began  to  con 
fess  himself  to  his  cousin  with  a  sort  of  tentative  frank 
ness  that  seemed  always  on  the  point  of  ending  in 
the  silences  which  interrupted  it,  but  which  broke  out 
afresh  after  every  pause.  And  behind  the  halting 
sentences,  Don  could  see  how  the  son  of  the  merchant, 
come  among  these  "sports"  whom  he  admired  and 
tried  to  imitate,  had  never  been  accepted  by  them, 
because  of  the  home  training  which  had  left  him 
ignorant  of  wines  and  theatres  and  low  talk  of  women ; 
how  he  had  toadied  to  them  and  spent  his  money  on 
them,  and  they  had  despised  him  for  it ;  how  he  had 
brought  liquor  to  his  rooms  for  them,  and  helped  to 
drink  it  in  a  mean  ambition  to  prove  himself  as  much 
a  man  of  the  world  as  any  of  them;  how  he  had  even 
made  his  boast  about  the  photograph  with  the  same 
aim,  and  how  they  had  gleefully  betrayed  him  to  his 
cousin  as  soon  as  they  saw  that  the  betrayal  would 
humiliate  him.  "They  're  a  lot  of  cads,  Don— that 
gang.  You  should  hear  them  talk  about  the  girls  they 
know.  And  they  sponge  on  you  for  everything,  and 
try  to  get  you  drunk.  And  when  you  get  into  trouble 
they  won't  stand  by  you.  Pittsey  was  the  best  of  the 
whole  crowd,  and  he  had  n't  a  good  word  to  say  for 
any  of  them." 

Don  listened  with  a  divided  mind,  trying  to  repress 


140  DON-A-DREAMS 

the  stirring  of  a  hope  which  would  not  be  still.  .  .  .  She 
had  quarrelled  with  Conroy,  too,  about  the  photograph. 
She  had  been  asking  Conroy1  about  him.  She  had  been 
thinking  of  him  all  these  weeks,  and  expecting  to  see 
him.  Perhaps  she  had  come  to  meet  him  that  morn 
ing  when  he  had  turned  back  from  her  at  the  college 
gate.  .  .  .  He  said  to  Conroy,  smiling  absent-mindedly 
in  the  darkness:  "You  're  well  out  of  there  anyway. 
If  the  Dean  does  n't  write  home  about  it—' 

"No,  he  '11  not  do  that.  He  said  he  would  n't.  He 
said  he  thought  I  should  leave  Residence,  but  that  no 
one  need  know  why.  He  talked  a  lot  of  punky  cant- 
about  doing  it  for  my  own  good.  He  's  a  snivelling 
codfish  anyway.  All  the  boys  loathe  him." 

"Well,  we  'd  better  get  a  sleep  now.     Good-night." 

"Good-night.  .  .  I  '11  get  even  with  him  some  day." 

He  was  breathing  in  a  heavy  stupor  of  sleep  when 

Don  was  still  lying  awake,  smiling  at  the  blackness, 

open-eyed. 


THE  Spring  had  come  early,  in  a  sudden  heat  of 
sunlight  that  steamed  the  snow  off  the  hillsides  and 
warmed  the  moist  air  to  the  temperature  of  a  hot-house. 
The  grass  had  greened  as  if  it  were  in  a  forcing-bed; 
the  twigs  of  the  trees  had  flushed  and  budded  mirac 
ulously;  the  birds  had  come  out  chirping  and  flutter 
ing  on  the  lawns,  in  busy  possession  of  a  world  which 
they  had  seized  and  settled  overnight.  And  on  a  ra- 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  141 

diant  holiday  afternoon,  Don  walked  with  her  along 
the  road  that  dipped  into  his  valley  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  town,  as  happy  as  if  he  were  bringing  her  to 
a  new  Eden. 

They  had  escaped  from  the  cramped  seats  of  a 
crowded  trolley-car,  and  they  came  to  freedom  down 
the  middle  of  the  water-rutted  steep  road  between 
guardian  poplar  trees,  at  a  pace  that  set  the  loose 
stones  rolling  under  their  feet.  It  brought  back  to 
her  cheeks  a  color  that  the  winter  had  blanched  from 
them,  and  to  her  eyes  a  sparkle  of  mischief  that  had 
been  lacking  to  the  more  timid,  grave  regard  with 
which  she  had  met  him  since  their  quarrel.  She  ran 
to  a  boulder  that  had  been  bared  by  the  rains,  at  the 
road-side,  and  sprang  up  on  it;  and  leaning  against 
the  wind,  she  drank  in  the  air  and  the  distance  with 
deep  breaths  and  a  long  gazing,  j>oised  on  her  little 
feet  with  her  arms  as  if  floating  out  beside  her,  her 
skirts  blown,  her  ribbons  fluttering  in  her  hat;  and 
he  watched  her,  holding  his  breath  on  a  smile,  as  if 
she  were  a  bird  which  he  was  afraid  was  about  to  fly 
away.  "Is  n't  it  lovely  I"  she  thrilled.  "The  trees 
—so  green!  Look  at  the  shadows  of  the  clouds  on 
the  hill  there !  Oh ! "  She  clasped  her  hands. 
"Where  are  we  going?" 

He  laughed,  guarding  the  small  secret.  "Down 
there — around  the  turn  in  the  valley— where  we  can 
look  over  the  river." 

"Is  it  as  pretty  as  this?" 

"Prettier.  It  's  never  been  farmed,  the  sides  are 
too  steep." 


142  DON-A-DREAMS 

She  stood  gazing.    "How  do  you  find  such  places?" 

"I  look  for  them." 

"Alone?" 

"Yes." 

She  reached  for  his  arm  to  help  her  down.  "Why 
are  you  always  alone?" 

When  she  was  beside  him  in  the  grass,  he  replied: 
"Because  you  're  not  always  with  me." 

She  gave  him  her  full  face  with  a  hesitating  smile. 
"You  would  tire  of  me,  if  I  were."  And  when  he 
shook  his  head,  tight-lipped,  she  cried:  "Oh,  yes,  you 
would!  I  tire  myself  even.  Some  days  I  just  hate 
myself.  Ask  Helen  Kimball  if  you  would  n't.  You 
should  see  the  way  she  looks  at  me  sometimes  when 
I  'm  talking  at  the  table." 

"I  met  her,"  he  said;  and  at  the  thought  of  Helen 
Kimball— the  stiff,  the  critical,  in  her  posed  assump 
tion  of  superiority— he  smiled  tolerantly.  "I  met  her 
the  night  I  called  with  Conroy." 

"What  did  you  think  of  her?"  (She  remembered 
Miss  KimbalPs  "Mr.  Chopin.") 

"I  did  n't  think  of  her  at  all." 

She.  understood,  and  she  laughed.  After  a  silence, 
she  said:  "I  'd  love  to  roll  down  this  hill,  would  n't 
you?" 

"It  is  n't  as  smooth  as  it  looks— under  the  grass." 

"Let  's  run." 

She  caught  his  sleeve  gaily  and  started  down  the 
slope,  with  a  constantly  increasing  speed  which  he  saw 
at  once  she  would  be  unable  to  check.  "Don't!" 
he  cried.  "Not  so  fast!"— and  tried  to  hold  her  back. 
She  tripped  and  almost  fell  over  a  rock.  He  caught 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  143 

at  a  bush,  and  jerked  her  to  her  feet,  and  swinging 
her  at  arm's  length  he  brought  her  around  toward 
him  as  they  slipped,  held  her  until  the  bush  broke, 
caught  another,  and  stopped  her  breathless  and  fright 
ened  on  the  edge  of  a  sudden  steepness,  with  his  arm 
about  her.  She  clung  to  him,  gasping  and  choking 
with  excitement. 

"You  might  have  hurt  yourself." 
"Oh  dear!     Let  me— sit  down.     I—" 
He  let  her  down,  kneeling  beside  her.     She  put  her 
hat  up  from  her  forehead  and  straightened  it,  panting. 

«T » 

"Are  you  all  right?" 

She  leaned  back  against  his  support.  "I — I  wanted 
to  make  you  run,"  she  laughed.  "You  were  so — " 

"Was  I?"  He  took  her  hand  and  held  it  against 
his  breast  in  a  passionate  apology  for  his  stiffness. 
"You  know  I  'm— " 

"What  have  you  done!"  she  cried.  There  was 
blood  on  his  fingers  where  the  bush  had  torn  them. 
"You  've  cut  yourself!" 

"It  's  nothing.  .  .  I  wish  it  were— anything— for 
you." 

"Don!" 

He  looked  away  quickly  to  hide  the  loosening  which 
he  felt  in  his  lips,  the  moisture  in  his  eyes.  She  took 
out  her  handkerchief,  and  wiped  his  fingers  silently. 
"  I  'm  not  worth  it, ' '  she  said  in  a  low  voice  of  shame. 
"I  'm— I  let  Conroy-I-" 

"Don't!"  he  begged.  "You  are.  You  're  every 
thing—You  're  all  I  have." 

He  raised  her  hand,  smeared  with  the  blood  of  his, 


144  DON-A-DREAMS 

and  kissed  it  like  a  knight.  It  went  tense  at  the 
touch  of  his  lips.  ' '  Oh,  Don ! ' '  she  whispered,  droop 
ing.  "Don!"— and  in  another  voice,  quickly:  "Don! 
Someone  will  see  us!" 

He  released  her.  They  returned  to  the  road  and 
went  on  down  the  hill,  side  by  side,  in  the  staring 
sunlight,  as  silent,  as  nervous— and  he  as  pale  and 
as  bewilderedly  happy — as  if  they  were  a  newly-mar 
ried  couple  coming  down  the  aisle  of  the  church  from 
the  altar  railing. 

HE  made  her  comfortable  under  his  pine,  in  a  little 
nook  of  budded  underbrush  on  the  side  of  a  hill  over 
looking  the  river;  and  he  sat  below  her,  turned  so 
as  to  look  up  at  her  with  the  glowing  face  of  a  shy 
young  passion.  She  had  taken  off  her  hat,  and  she 
leaned  back  against  the  tree,  flushed  and  smiling  and 
holding  him  with  a  deep  gaze  that  twinkled  and  soft 
ened  and  beamed  on  him.  They  were  rediscovering 
their  past;  it  had  become  a  new  wonder  to  them,  since 
it  had  led  them  to  this.  "Do  you  remember  the  little 
place  we  had  in  Coulton? — beside  the  stream?"  she 
said.  "Do  you  remember  the  day  I  found  you  there? 
— and  you  called  me  'Miss  Margaret'?" 

"May  I — again?  You  've  always  been  'Miss  Mar 
garet'." 

' '  Have  I !    Of  course.    Do  you  like  it  ? " 
"Yes."    He  fondled  the  name  with  his  voice:  "Miss 
Margaret ! ' ' 

"What  am  I  to  call  you?" 

"I  don't  know.    You  called  me  'Don.'  " 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  145 

"But  everyone  calls  you  that.  I  want  a  name  of 
my  own,  too." 

"It  does  n't  sound  the  same— when  you  say  it." 

"How  do  I  say  it?"  She  tried  it  in  varying  in 
flections:  "Don?  Don.  Don!" 

"It  's  your  voice.    It  's  so—  "    He  gulped. 

"Why,  I  have  n't  a  pretty  voice,  do  you  think?" 

"I  can  hear  it  when  I  'm  alone.  I  can  see  you,  any 
time,  by  just  closing  my  eyes." 

"Really!     Try  it  now.     Close  them." 

"No."  He  shook  his  head,  his  eyes  fastened  on  her, 
hungrily.  "I  want  to  see  you  really.  I  shall  be 
alone  again  soon  enough." 

"Why— why  are  you  so  much  alone?" 

"Because  I  can  .  .  .  think  of  you." 

"Don!"  she  said  earnestly.  "You  must  n't  do  it. 
I-You-" 

' '  After  you  went  away  from  Coulton,  I  was  so  lonely 
I  used  to  go  to  the  ravine  to  meet  you  and — and  here, 
when  I  was  at  college,  before  you  came,  I  had  you  all 
the  time."  She  reached  out  her  hand  on  the  warm 
impulse  of  pity,  and  he  took  it  in  both  his.  "Now 
I  shall  have  this  to  remember — the  softness." 

"Oh,  Don,  dear,",  she  pleaded,  bending  down  to 
him.  "If  I  disappoint  you!  If  I—" 

He  played  with  her  fingers,  watching  them  whiten 
and  dimple.  "You  never  will  again.  I  know  you 
now.  You  never  will." 

"But  when  I  go  away?" 

"You  '11  come  back." 

She  caught  his  wrist  and  shook  it,  as  if  to  wake 


146  DON-A-DREAMS 

him  from  this  smiling  certainty  of  happiness.  "But 
if  I  don't?  If  I  go  to  New  York ?  Mother  has  written 
me  that  she  wants  me  to  spend  the  winter  in  New  York, 
studying." 

"Well,  I   '11  go  too."     He  laughed,  confidently. 

' '  To  New  York  ?    What  will  you  do  there  ? ' ' 

He  did  not  know.  He  would  find  something.  If 
she  went  abroad — to  Germany — he  would  wait  for  her 
to  come  back.  "It  's  all  right,"  he  said.  "Don't 
worry.  I  know.  I  can  wait." 

She  leaned  back  against  her  tree  again,  gazing  out 
over  the  river  at  the  far  shore,  as  if  it  were  the  un 
certain  future  in  which  he  put  such  trust.  When 
he  looked  at  her,  he  saw  the  troubled  wrinkle  of  her 
forehead,  and  he  said:  "Don't— don't  think  of  it  that 
way.  Go  wherever  you  like.  I  can  wait.  I  '11  be 
busy  preparing  for  you — until  you  come  back." 

She  said,  in  a  shaken  voice:  "We  're  so  young. 
It  '11  be  years  before  we  can  be  together,  really.  If 
I  meet  someone  else  .  .  .  and  don't  .  .  .  come  back." 

"You  always  have.  You  always  will.  If  you  don't, 
I  '11  know  it  's  because  he  is— better.  It  will  always 
be  the  same — with  me— now,  whether  you  come  or  not. 
I  '11  always  think  of  you  the  same." 

She  could  not  speak,  except  through  the  pressure 
of  her  fingers.  He  answered  it  with  the  trust  of  his 
eyes.  "You  '11  not  worry  about  it?" 

She  shook  her  head,  blinded.  "I  '11  try,"  she 
promised,  chokingly.  "I  '11  try  to  come  back— always 
—for  always." 

He  held  her  hand  against  his  cheek.  "Thanks," 
he  whispered,  in  a  speechless  gratitude. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  147 

THAT  day  was  to  remain  with  him,  in  living  memory, 
as  a  joy  that  was  not  to  be  forgotten  unless  he  forgot 
his  own  identity.  It  was  to  become  as  essentially 
a  part  of  him  as  the  memory  of  a  vision  might  be  part 
of  the  life  and  religion  of  a  saint.  The  view  of  the 
river  shining  among  the  branches,  the  fallen  trees 
in  the  underbrush,  the  yellow  sunlight,  the  green 
shadows,  her  face  against  the  brown  trunk  of  the 
tree,  the  warm  surrender  of  her  hand— the  memory 
of  these  was  to  be  about  him  in  his  future  like  thoughts 
of  home  in  exile.  They  were  to  give  to  all  women  a  sub 
tle  quality  of  wood-enchantment,  as  if  they  reminded 
him  of  nymphs  and  graces  known  in  some  forgotten,  far- 
off  golden  land.  And  they  were  to  make  the  smallest 
patch  of  grass  and  trees  poetical  to  him,  love-haunted, 
at  once  heart-gladdening  and  full  of  painful  longings 
—even  though  it  were  only  a  green  square  in  a  great 
city,  noisy  with  traffic  and  shabby  with  the  dust  from 
the  worn  pavements  of  thronged  streets. 

And  as  if  he  were  conscious  of  the  momentous  in 
fluence  of  the  hour— or  perhaps  as  instinctively  as 
the  plant  that  turns  itself  to  the  ripening  of  the  sun 
light—he  gave  himself  up  to  her,  without  any  reserve 
of  his  secrets,  returning  to  her  the  homage  of  all  the 
dreams  which  she  had  inspired,  the  flowering  of  the 
past  which  she  had  suddenly  made  perfect.  It  marked 
the  change  in  him  from  mere  dreaming  to  aggressive 
idealism.  He  was  no  longer  afraid  of  himself  or  of 
her,  resolved  that  whatever  he  believed  of  her  should 
be  made  true;  and  she  heard  him  at  first  with  shame 
and  protestations,  with  pity,  with  tenderness,  and  at 
last  with  a  humbled  gratitude  and  a  secret  pledge 


148  .      DON-A-DREAMS 

to  be  worthy  of  such  devotion  if  it  were  possible— until, 
like  a  pair  of  children  under  their  tree,  she  leaning 
against  his  shoulder,,  holding  hands,  they  looked  out 
on  the  future  with  shining  eyes,  trusting  it  with  the 
hope  of  their  hearts. 

She  was  to  be  a  singer,  perhaps  in  grand  opera, 
surely  on  the  concert  stage;  and  he  was  to  keep  busy 
with  his  books  while  she  was  working  with  her  music. 
They  would  meet  in  New  York — that  London  of  am 
bitious  young  Canadians.  He  would  find  something 
there  for  him  to  do;  "They  have  so  much  money," 
he  said,  "they  '11  not  miss  the  few  thousands  I  '11 
need."  He  inspired  her,  for  the  moment,  with  some 
of  his  confidence,  and  she  tried  to  trust  herself  as  much 
as  he  trusted  her.  When  she  fell  silent,  regretting 
the  loss  of  girlish  irresponsibility  and  heart-freedom 
which  these  plans  required  of  her,  feeling  her  hand 
held  where  her  inclination  was  only  reluctantly 
settled,  he  saw  the  shadow  in  her  face  again,  and  said : 
"Don't  worry,  now.  Leave  it  to  me.  I  '11  make  it 
come  true.  I  always  have." 

She  sighed.  "It  is  n't  that.  It  is  n't  you.  It  's 
myself  I  'm  afraid  of." 

"I  know,"  he  said.  "I  '11  make  you  come  true, 
too." 

She  smiled  doubtfully,  watching  a  cloud  that  had 
furled  itself  across  the  sun,  above  the  far  shore  of 
the  river,  low  on  the  horizon.  How  low  it  was — the 
sun!  "What  time  is  it?"  She  drew  her  watch  from 
her  belt.  "Goodness!"  she  cried.  "It  's  nearly 
six  o'clock." 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  149 

"Oh  well,"  he  said.     "Who  cares?" 

She  caught  up  her  hat  frantically.  "It  will  take 
us  an  hour  to  get  back.  The  Kimballs— " 

He  came  down  to  realities,  troubled  by  her  alarm. 
"I  know  a  short  cut." 

"Come!     Quick!    We  must  hurry." 

He  started  off  confidently  on  his  "short  cut";  and 
she  followed,  pinning  her  hat  as  she  went. 

THEY  lost  their  way  in  the  green  twilight  of  the 
woods.  It  was  dusk  before  they  came  out  upon  an  un 
known  road  and  saw  their  street-car  line.  It  was 
almost  dark  when  he  left  her  reluctantly,  at  the  Kim- 
ball  gate.  And  when  he  was  sitting  at  his  window, 
his  lamp  unlighted — smiling  at  the  sky  above  the  spire 
of  St.  Stephen's — Mrs.  Kimball  was  saying  to  the 
defiant  girl:  "Very  well.  Very  well.  I  '11  write  to 
your  mother  at  once  then.  I  shall  no  longer  be  re 
sponsible  for  you,  if  you  do  such  things.  That  will  do. ' ' 


XI 


ALTHOUGH  he  had  been  late  for  supper,  Mrs.  Stewart 
had  kept  him  a  plate  of  potatoes  and  meat  warm  in  the 
oven,  and  he  had  eaten  them  without  thanking  her  for 
the  trouble  she  had  taken  for  him,  and  without  paying 
any  attention  to  her  complaint  that  Conroy  had  not 
yet  come  to  the  table.  And  now,  shut  in  his  room,  he 
remembered  Conroy  only  to  pity  him  for  having  missed 


150  DON-A-DREAMS 

the  ecstasy  of  such  days  as  this;  and  looking  out  over 
the  rustling  maples  that  lined  the  street  and  reached 
their  topmost  branches  almost  to  the  level  of  his  win 
dow-sill,  he  watched  the  stars  brightening  peacefully 
in  the  dark  blue  of  the  sky,  above  the  blind  roofs  of 
the  houses  on  the  slope  below  him,  feeling  himself  in 
tune  with  the  joyful  order  of  the  universe  and  pitying 
the  busy  absorption  of  the  inmates  of  those  houses, 
imprisoned  under  their  shingles,  ignorant  of  the  happy 
night  that  sparkled  above  them  in  its  eternal  calm.  He 
went  over  the  memory  of  his  afternoon,  incident  by 
incident,  like  a  miser  counting  the  day 's  gains ;  and  he 
only  turned  from  it  to  thoughts  of  a  future  rich  with 
the  golden  promise  of  many  such  days.  The  moon 
swung  itself  up  among  the  horizon  clouds,  majestically ; 
and  it  was  no  longer  to  him  the  skull  of  a  dead  world, 
hung  in  the  heavens  as  a  memento  mori  to  this  still 
warm  earth  and  its  inhabitants;  it  was  the  moon  of 
lovers,  the  glimmering  summer  moon,  whose  light  was 
all  poetry  and  pallid  gentleness  and  quiet  thoughts. 
He  rested  his  chin  in  his  hands  and  smiled  at  it  like 
a  boy  listening  to  a  fairy  tale. 

It  was  midnight  before  he  heard  Conroy  stumbling 
up  the  porch  steps.  He  lit  his  lamp,  and  began  to 
unlace  his  shoes,  guiltily  aware  that  Conroy  would  be 
surprised  to  find  him  up  so  late.  It  was  this  thought 
that  made  him  ask  his  cousin,  as  soon  as  he  came  in, 
"Well,  what  kept  you?"  When  he  received  no  answer, 
he  looked  over  his  shoulder,  smiling  confusedly,  and 
saw  Conroy  standing  with  his  hand  on  the  doorknob, 
swaying. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  151 

His  hat  was  broken  and  crushed  down  on  his  eyes. 
His  necktie  was  awry,  his  waistcoat  torn  open.  He 
swung  the  door  shut  with  a  lurch,  and  grunted  ' '  Uh  1 ' ' 

Don  stood  up  and  watched  him  stumble  across  the 
room  to  his  cot  and  sit  down  on  it  heavily.  "Wha'  kep' 
me,  uh?"  He  tried  to  hang  his  hat  on  the  bed  post, 
dropped  it  on  the  floor,  and  laughed  feebly.  "Nothin' 
kep'  me — stayed.  Lossofun.  As'  the  Dean  wha'  kep' 
me.  As'  the  Dean."  He  waved  his  hand.  "Fullows 
said  I  was  'fraid  t'—t'— throw  brick  through  's  win 
dow.  Uh?  Wha'  say?" 

Don  turned  his  back,  sickened  by  the  sight  of  that 
imbecile  face,  with  the  glazed  eyes  and  the  swollen  lips. 
Conroy  mumbled:  "You— I'm  eck— hie— spelled." 

"Expelled!" 

"Ever  been  ek— spelled,  uh?  Man  on  each  arms  'n 
legs  throw  y'  over  a  fence.  Lossofun." 

IT  was  not  until  the  next  morning  that  Don  heard  the 
story  from  a  sick  and  repentant  Conroy.  He  had  won 
a  bet  on  a  Varsity  baseball  game,  and,  with  his  win 
nings,  he  had  celebrated  the  victory  with  Pittsey  and 
some  others  of  the  coterie.  Pittsey  and  he  had  "taken 
too  much. ' '  On  a  ' '  dare ' '  from  the  others,  they  two  had 
gone  back  to  Residence  and  thrown  stones,  in  a  drunken 
folly,  through  the  Dean's  windows.  They  had  both 
been  caught,  the  others  escaping  in  the  darkness;  the 
Dean  had  told  them  that  they  might  consider  them 
selves  expelled  from  the  University;  and  when  they 
had  tried  to  attack  him,  they  had  been  put  out  of  the 
college  grounds  by  the  beadle  and  the  janitor  and  the 


152  DON-A-DREAMS 

hired  men  of  the  houses.  "It  was  a  regular  riot,"  he 

said  weakly,  "and  those  d d  cads,  after  getting  us 

into  it,  ran  away  and  left  us."  He  turned  on  his 
side  with  his  face  to  the  wall,  faint  with  nausea,  and 
he  abandoned  himself  to  a  sulky  despair,  refusing  to 
reply  to  Don's  half-hearted  attempts  to  console  him 
with  the  hope  that  the  affair  might  be  hushed  up,  and 
not  even  speaking  when  Don  said,  "  I  'm  going  to  see  the 
Dean  as  soon  as  I  've  had  breakfast." 

He  had  small  hope  of  aiding  his  cousin,  but  what 
hope  he  had  was  increased  by  the  Dean's  attitude  of 
mind.  "I  should  be  very  sorry,"  he  said  frankly,  "to 
see  McLean  expelled.  I  understand,  as  well  as  you  do, 
that  he  has  been  led  into  these  escapades  by  older  boys 
than  he.  But  I  'm  afraid  the  affair  is  not  in  my  hands, 
since  it  is  not  a  matter  of  house  discipline,  your  cousin 
being  no  longer  in  Residence.  The  President  already 
knows  of  the  incident— it  was  impossible  to  conceal  it 
—and  he  will,  no  doubt,  act  as  he  sees  fit.  I  can  promise 
you  most  willingly,  that  I  shall  use  my  influence  to 
have  McLean  treated  leniently,  and  I  should  advise  you 
to  see  the  President  yourself." 

But  the  President — in  his  public  office  with  his  sec 
retary — standing  before  his  world  as  the  head  of  the 
University,  had  no  such  paternal  view  to  take  of  Con- 
roy's  offense.  He  listened  to  Don's  stammering  appeal 
with  a  stern  face.  ' '  The  Dean, ' '  he  said  curtly.  "  No ! 
Such  drunken  vandalism  is  a  disgrace  to  the  University. 
I  will  recommend  the  expulsion  of  every  student  whom 
I  can  connect  with  it. ' '  And  Don  left  his  hope  in  that 
office  when  he  went  out. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  153 

He  returned  to  his  room,  intending  to  advise  Conroy 
that  he  had  better  hurry  home  and  throw  himself  on 
his  father's  mercy  before  the  Board  could  meet  to  pass 
sentence  upon  him;  but  Conroy  had  dressed  and  left 
the  house,  and  Mrs.  Stewart  did  not  know  where  he  had 
gone.  Don  waited  for  him  all  the  afternoon,  trying  to 
feel  worried  and  depressed,  but  unable  to  do  so  because 
of  the  happy  thoughts  of  Margaret  that  kept  singing 
in  his  mind  like  music.  And  the  sum  of  his  reflections 
was  a  sentimental  foresight  that  whatever  grief  or  cal 
amity  might  fall  on  him  in  his  future,  it  would  strike 
him  only  a  glancing  blow  so  long  as  he  had  her  affec 
tion  to  fortify  him. 

At  five  o'clock,  he  went  to  meet  her,  hastening 
through  the  mild  sunlight  with  a  rising  spirit;  and  he 
greeted  her  with  a  smile  which  he  concealed  hypocriti 
cally  when  he  saw  her  expression.  He  thought  that  she 
had  heard  the  bad  news  of  Conroy. 

She  said,  abruptly:  "Mrs.  Kimball  has  written  to 
mother."  And  standing  on  the  street  corner,  digging 
the  ferule  of  her  parasol  into  the  grass  of  the  "boule 
vard,"  she  told  him  of  the  scene  of  the  previous  even 
ing,  how  Mrs.  Kimball  had  scolded  her,  how  she  had 
defied  the  woman,  how  the  daughters  had  taken  part 
with  their  mother  against  her,  and  how,  finally,  they 
had  written  to  Mrs.  Richardson,  refusing  to  have  in 
their  house  ' '  any  girl  who  would  go  unchaperoned  into 
the  woods  with  a  Varsity  student  and  remain  there 
until  after  nightfall. ' '  She  was  still  defiant,  still  unre 
pentant.  "I  've  written,  too,"  she  said,  "but  I  know 
mother  '11  not  understand.  If  she  does  n't  come  up 


154  DON-A-DREAMS 

here  to  take  me  away,  she  '11  write  for  me  to  go  to  her. ' ' 

"And  leave  your  music?"  He  had  been  counting 
on  another  month  of  meetings  at  the  least,  to  bring  her 
so  near  to  him  that  she  would  never  be  able  to  go  free 
and  forgetful  of  him  again. 

' '  The  term  is  practically  over  now.  There  's  nothing 
left  but  the  examinations.  I  'm  not  taking  them." 
When  she  looked  up  at  him,  she  cried :  ' '  Well,  it  's  your 
own  fault!  Why  did  n't  you  see  what  time  it  was?" 

He  had  no  thought  of  defending  himself.  He  was 
dumb  on  the  edge  of  the  gulf  of  years — the  three  years 
of  his  college  course  at  the  very  least— which  separated 
him  from  New  York  and  the  hope  of  winning  her. 

His  helplessness  irritated  her;  he  had  been  so  confi 
dent  of  his  plans,  under  the  pine,  that  she  had  believed 
he  would  see  some  way  of  writing  to  her  mother  and 
defending  her.  "What  are  you  going  to  do?" 

He  took  out  his  watch  and  looked  at  it  dazedly,  shak 
ing  his  head  in  answer  to  her  question;  for  it  was  as 
if  the  stroke  of  the  disaster  had  broken  the  continuity 
of  his  life ;  and  with  his  future  suddenly  gone  from  him, 
he  tried  to  pick  up  the  broken  strands  that  were  left, 
and  found  himself  wondering  simply  what  day  of  the 
week  it  was  and  what  day  the  morrow  would  be. 

The  sight  of  her  tears  brought  him  to  himself.  He 
said  hoarsely :  ' '  Don 't.  Don 't.  I  '11  fix  it.  I  '11  do  some 
thing.  Give  me  time — to  think.  It  is  n't  any  worse 
than  it  was  the  day  I  got  your  mother's  letter."  He 
turned  her  quickly  into  a  side  street,  talking  at  random 
in  his  attempts  to  reassure  her  and  almost  in  tears  him 
self.  "It  will  all  come  out  all  right.  I'll  think  of 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  155 

something.  Your  mother— See  the  way  she  came 
around,  about  the  letter.  She  did  n't  forbid  you  to  let 
me  call— or  anything.  Look!  Here  are  some  people 
coming.  Don't  let  them  see  you—" 

She  put  up  her  parasol  and  screened  her  face  from 
the  passersby.  He  went  the  rest  of  the  way  in  a  miser 
able  silence,  she  holding  the  parasol  down  against  him 
too.  When  he  left  her  at  the  gate,  he  pleaded:  "I'll 
know  to-morrow.  I  '11  meet  you— there.  Don't — " 

She  cut  him  short  with  a  blind  gesture  of  dismissal. 
She  could  not  tell  him  that  she  had  been  crying  with 
anger  and  self-pity  because  of  the  insolence  of  the  Kim- 
balls,  and  with  disappointment  because  he  had  not 
thought  of  any  way  to  defend  her  from  them.  She 
went  indoors  without  a  backward  glance  at  him. 

He  began  an  interminable  walk  that  led  him  in  cir 
cles  of  thought,  around  and  around,  to  no  plan,  to  no 
conclusion,  to  no  hope.  She  was  going  to  leave  him, 
for  three  years  at  least.  There  was  nothing  he  could 
do,  nothing  he  could  say,  to  prevent  it.  She  was  going 
to  leave  him.  And  would  she  be  waiting  for  him  on  the 
other  side  of  that  desert  of  separation?  He  was  tor 
mented  by  the  fear  that  she  might  not.  She  was  going 
to  leave  him.  And  suddenly  he  felt  desperate,  in  revolt 
against  the  fate  that  was  persecuting  him,  ready  to 
do  anything  that  would  break  this  tyranny  of  circum 
stances  and  set  him  free  to  model  his  life  to  his  desire. 

HE  did  not  return  to  the  boarding-house  for  supper, 
and  when  he  did  return  he  found  Conroy  and  his  friend 
Pittsey,  evidently  waiting  for  him,  in  the  room. 


156  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Hello!"  they  greeted  his  despondence.  "What  does 
His  Holiness  say?" 

He  sat  down,  wearily,  to  tell  them  of  his  interviews 
with  "His  Holiness" — as  they  called  the  Dean — and 
with  the  President,  whom  Pittsey  referred  to  as  "Old 
Skeesicks."  And  he  concluded,  in  a  hopeless  resigna 
tion  that  was  more  for  himself  than  Conroy:  "You  'd 
better  go  home  and  tell  your  father,  before  the  Board 
meets.  You  'd  better  not  let  him  hear  the  first  of  it 
from  them." 

"Not  on  your  life!"  Conroy  replied.  "I'm  not  going 
home. ' ' 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?" 

"  I  'm  going  to  get  out  of  reach,  until  this  blows  over. ' ' 
He  looked  at  Pittsey  as  if  referring  the  leadership  in 
their  plans  to  him;  and  Pittsey,  having  emptied  his 
lungs  of  cigarette  smoke,  explained:  "We  're  going  to 
New  York." 

Don  stared,  incredulously.  Pittsey,  with  his  hat  on 
the  back  of  his  head,  his  chair  tilted,  smiled  an  amused 
challenge  to  his  amazement. 

"New—  But— but  what  are  you  going  to  do? " 

Conroy  replied  recklessly:  "Oh  we  '11  find  some 
thing,  I  guess.'  Pittsey  is  going  into  newspaper  work. 
He  has  a  brother  there.  I  have  enough  money  to  keep 
me  for  a  month  or  two — till  the  governor  comes  around 
again. ' ' 

Don  cried:  "But  supposing  he  does  n't  come 
round ! ' ' 

"Well,  Great  Scott !"  Conroy  said,  "I  'm  not  a  three- 
year-old,  and  I  'm  sick  of  being  treated  as  if  I  were. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  157 

This  government  kindergarten  business  makes  me  tired. 
What  's  the  use  of  hanging  around  here  for  four  years  ? 
You  don't  learn  anything  that  '11  ever  be  any  good  to 
you.  We  '11  have  to  strike  out  for  ourselves  sometime, 
and  we  might  as  well  face  it  now  as  any  other  day!" 

Don  looked  from  one  to  the  other,  silenced. 

''You  '11  never  learn  to  swim  until  you  go  into  the 
water,"  Pittsey  put  in  airily.  He  reached  a  text-book 
that  was  lying  on  Don's  table,  and  began  to  turn  over 
the  leaves.  Conroy  smoked  feverishly.  It  was  evident 
to  Don  that  their  minds  were  made  up.  He  looked  at 
them  almost  with  envy.  They  were  going  to  do  what 
he  would,  too — if  he  dared. 

Then  Pittsey,  tossing  the  book  back  on  the  table  with 
a  gesture  of  decision,  said:  "Expelled?  We  '11  expel 
them!  The  pompous  flat-heads  with  their  machine- 
made  college  education,  we  '11  expel  them  out  of  our 
lives.  Eh,  Mac?"  And  without  bitterness,  as  if  the 
whole  affair  were  a  lark  to  him,  alert  and  self-assured, 
he  began  to  make  fun  of  the  college,  the  professors,  the 
lectures,  the  students,  the  country— everything  that 
they  were  leaving;  and  Conroy  listened,  fascinated, 
smiling  when  Pittsey  smiled  and  agreeing  with 
everything  in  resolute  nods,  his  teeth  bitten  in 
to  his  pipe.  "What  's  the  use  of  staying  here?" 
Pittsey  demanded,  his  close-set  black  eyes  sparkling  on 
Don's  gloomy  abstraction.  "Everything  's  scaled  to 
the  wage  of  a  dollar  a  day.  They  Keep  their  savings 
in  an  old  sock.  A  fellow  never  gets  an  increase  in  salary 
until  he  gets  married;  and  then  they  raise  him  every 
time  his  wife  has  a  baby.  As  for  literature ! ' '  He  flicked 


158  DON-A-DREAMS 

his  cigarette  ashes  on  the  floor.  "They  don't  charge  you 
anything  for  printing  your  stuff— unless  you  want  to 
bring  out  a  book.  You  have  to  pay  for  a  book.  There's 
money  in  writing  school  readers,  I  understand— and 
City  Directories.  If  they  want  anything  to  read  after 
they  leave  school,  they  buy  a  set  of  Dickens  or  Thack 
eray,  and  enjoy  the  latest  thing  in  literature.  I  'd 
sooner  write  ads  for  a  New  York  department  store  on 
a  salary  of  three  thousand  a  year." 

Don  heard  him  without  heeding  him.  .  .  They 
were  going  to  New  York !  At  one  stroke  they  were  set 
ting  themselves  free!  He  crossed  his  knees  to  hide  a 
trembling  that  took  him  in  the  legs,  standing  on  the 
verge  of  a  resolution,  afraid  of  the  leap.  .  .  At  a 
pause  in  Pittsey  's  babble,  he  asked  Conroy :  ' '  When  are 
you  going?" 

"I  'm  waiting  for  my  month's  check  from  the  gov 
ernor.  It  ought  to  be  here  Monday.  Why?" 

Both  Pittsey  and  he  saw  something  in  Don's  face. 
They  watched  him  in  a  puzzled  silence.  He  blinked 
and  swallowed  like  a  boy  about  to  make  his  first  dive. 
' '  Well, ' '  he  said,  pale,  ' '  I  may  go  with  you. ' ' 

"What!" 

"Wha-a-at!!" 

"I  've  been  thinking  of  it  for  some  time.  .  .  I  '11 
never  pass  these  exams.  .  .  I've  been  saving  every 
cent  I  could.  .  .  I  had  a  quarrel  with  my  father 
at  Christmas — about  not  studying  law — "  He  gulped 
on  his  secret,  with  an  expression  of  beseeching  them  not 
to  press  him  for  the  whole  truth. 

Pittsey    came    to    his    relief    with    a    shrill    laugh. 


THE  DAY-DREAMEE  159 

''Caesar's  ghost!"  he  cried.  "The  three  of  us.  Let's 
eat  on  it.  Come  on.  It's  my  treat.  Come  on.  Have 
a  feed  on  me  at  Durkin  's. ' '  Conroy  was  staring  at  his 
cousin,  over  the  pipe  which  he  held,  forgotten,  at  his 
lips.  "Eh,  Mac?"  Pittsey  prodded  him. 

Don  smiled  tremulously  at  Conroy,  and  said  "I— I'm 
hungry  enough." 

"Come  on,  then!" 


XII 


THEY  went;  and  they  made  their  plans  together,  over 
beefsteak  and  potatoes,  as  daringly  as  three  musketeers 
of  romance  conspiring  to  overturn  a  dynasty  with  their 
rapiers.  They  returned,  through  the  quiet  streets,  in 
a  line  abreast,  all  keyed  up  to  Pittsey 's  high  spirits, 
swaggering  and  talking  as  freely  as  if  they  were  irre 
sponsible  young  tourists  in  a  foreign  land — as  indeed 
they  seemed  to  Don,  when  he  looked  around  at  the  shops 
and  the  houses  that  watched  him  with  such  an  alien 
impassiveness  as  he  paraded  by.  Pittsey  left  them  at 
Mrs.  Stewart's  door,  and  went  off  whistling  martially; 
but  his  spirit  presided  over  the  flushed  council  which 
Don  and  Conroy  kept  in  session  until  two  o'clock  on 
Sunday  morning,  perfecting  their  plans  in  detail, 
counting  their  money  and  encouraging  their  hopes. 

In  pursuance  of  those  plans,  Don,  the  next  day, 
wrote  to  his  mother  that,  after  all,  his  father  had  been 
right ;  that  he  felt  he  would  be  better  at  work ;  that  Con 
roy — as  she  would  probably  hear  from  the  McLeans — 


160  DON-A-DREAMS 

had  gotten  into  trouble  at  the  University  and  was  leav 
ing  for  New  York  in  a  few  days;  and  that  he  had 
decided  to  accompany  his  cousin. 

They  would  be  better  together.  They  had  saved 
enough  money  to  keep  them  until  they  could  find  some 
thing  to  do.  He  was  sorry  that  this  would  prevent  him 
from  spending  his  summer  holiday  in  Coulton,  but  if 
all  went  well — as  he  was  sure  it  would — he  could  be 
home  for  a  happy  Christmas. 

"Frank  can  take  my  place  at  the  University,"  he 
concluded.  "His  success  will  make  up  with  father  for 
my  failure.  I  intend  to  do  better  where  I  am  going. 
I  will  think  of  you  and  write  to  you  every  day.  Address 
me,  for  the  present,  at  the  General  Post  Office,  New 
York  City." 

He  did  not  add  any  messages  of  affection;  he  felt 
that  in  his  present  mood,  they  would  be  hypocritical. 

He  wrote  to  his  aunt  that  Conroy— as  she  would  prob 
ably  hear  from  Conroy  himself — was  leaving  the  Uni 
versity  on  account  of  a  breach  of  college  discipline  for 
which  he  had  been  blamed  although  he  was  by  no  means 
the  ringleader  in  it;  that  he,  himself,  had  decided  he 
could  not  afford  to  waste  three  years  more  on  his  edu 
cation;  and  that  they  were  going  to  make  a  start 
together  in  New  York. 

No  doubt  it  would  seem  very  foolish  to  her,  but  Con 
roy  was  afraid  to  go  home  and  face  Uncle  John.  For 
his  own  part,  he  had  quarrelled  with  his  father  at 
Christmas,  about  refusing  to  study  law,  and  in  order  to 
avoid  further  trouble  he  was  taking  his  affairs  into  his 
own  hands.  They  were  both  well  supplied  with  money ; 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  161 

she  need  not  worry  about  that.  He  owed  most  of  his  to 
her,  but  he  was  going  to  earn  now,  and  he  hoped  to  be 
able  to  repay  her— although,  of  course,  he  could  never 
repay  her  for  her  kindness. 

She  was  not  to  worry  about  Conroy.  Everything 
would  come  out  all  right.  They  would  look  after  each 
other.  They  had  plenty  of  money. 

And  then,  finding  that  he  was  repeating  himself  and 
arriving  no  nearer  an  end,  he  subscribed  himself, 
abruptly,  "Your  affectionate  nephew,"  and  was  done. 

He  addressed  his  envelopes  with  a  heavy  apprehen 
sion  of  the  grief  and  anxiety  which  they  would  bring 
to  Coulton ;  but  he  consoled  himself,  in  the  hopefulness 
of  youth,  with  the  assurance  that  grief  was  a  passing 
accident  of  life  which  would  be  forgotten  in  the  rosy 
future  to  follow.  He  saw  himself  returning  with  Con 
roy  to  Coulton,  for  their  Christmas  holiday,  with 
money  in  their  pockets  and  success  in  their  smiles ;  and 
he  felt  that  the  joy  of  such  a  reunion  would  more  than 
compensate  for  the  partings  which  were  necessary  to 
make  it  possible. 

He  spent  his  afternoon  erasing  his  name  from  his 
college  texts  so  that  he  might  sell  them  second-hand, 
tearing  up  his  note-books  and  papers,  and  packing  his 
trunk.  He  underlined,  in  Emerson's  Essays,  the  sen 
tence:  "One  of  the  benefits  of  a  college  education  is 
to  show  the  boy  its  little  avail."  He  put  the  proof  of 
Margaret's  photograph  between  the  first  pages  of  the 
Essay  on  Love,  tied  up  the  volume  with  a  shoe-string, 
and  hid  it  in  the  bottom  of  his  trunk  beside  the  bible 

which  his  mother  had  given  him  at  Christmas.    And 

11 


162  DON-A-DREAMS 

he  carried  himself,  through  all  these  preparations,  with 
the  air  of  a  man  who  has  taken  his  decision  and  is 
resolved  to  act  on  it  without  further  thought. 

CONROY'S  check  came  in  the  morning  mail.  And  they 
were  ready— all  but  Pittsey.  He  was  waiting  for  word 
from  his  brother,  who,  it  seemed,  was  an  actor  of  uncer 
tain  address,  generally  written  to  "in  care "  of  a  dram 
atic  paper  because  he  was  more  often  "on  the  road" 
than  in  New  York.  Pittsey  had  mailed  his  letter  Sat 
urday  morning;  he  should  have  a  reply  on  Tuesday; 
in  any  case  they  would  wait  no  later  than  Tuesday 
morning.  Conroy  hurried  to  the  bank  to  cash  his  check, 
and  Don  accompanied  him  part  of  the  way,  going  to 
sell  his  books  to  a  second-hand  dealer.  They  agreed  to 
meet  again  at  the  railroad  offices  to  buy  their  tickets. 

But  the  first  dealer  to  whom  Don  offered  his  volumes, 
haggled  interminably  over  the  purchase,  offering  so 
little  for  them  that  Don  refused  to  sell  them  and  carried 
them  to  a  second  dealer  who  would  give  less  than  the 
first.  They  were  finally  sold  at  such  a  loss  that  Don 
felt  too  poor  to  pay  his  street-car  fare  to  the  ticket 
office,  and  he  walked,  ruefully  fingering  the  few  silver 
coins  in  the  pocket  of  his  trousers  and  despising  the 
commercial  world  that  made  second-hand  book-dealers 
what  they  were.  Half  way  to  their  rendezvous,  Conroy 
hailed  him  from  the  rear  platform  of  a  passing  street 
car,  beckoning  him  warningly  to  turn  back,  his  face 
as  ghastly  as  if  he  were  waving  a  red  flag  to  save  a 
railway  train  from  destruction.  Don  ran  after  the  car, 
alarmed,  and  saw  Conroy  alighting  at  a  street  corner. 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  163 

They  met  in  the  middle  of  a  block.  Conroy  drew  him 
into  a  doorway. 

"They— they  wouldn't  cash  it,"  he  gasped.  "He 
telegraphed  them  to  stop  payment.  He  must  know. 
They  must  have  written— from  the  University.  He  '11 
be  coming  himself.  What  '11  I  do?" 

Don  wiped  his  forehead;  the  walking  and  the  run 
ning  had  made  him  hot,  and  this  new  catastrophe 
brought  the  perspiration  out  on  him  like  a  fear.  "I 
can  buy  the  tickets,"  he  said  faintly.  "You  'd  better 
go  and  stay  with  Pittsey.  He  '11  not  find  you  there." 

"What  '11  we  do?" 

"What?  Why,  we  '11  go  to  New  York,  I  suppose. 
There  is  n  't  anything  else  to  do  now. ' ' 

"He'll  follow  us." 

"Well,  if  he  can't  find  you  here,  how  will  he— I  don't 
know.  Ask  Pittsey.  Go  and  ask  Pittsey."  He  dis 
liked  the  part  of  a  plotter. 

Conroy  saw  himself  cast  off,  like  a  drowning  man,  to 
his  own  frantic  struggles.  "You— you  won  't  leave 
me?"  he  faltered. 

Don  asked  plaintively:  "Why  should  I  leave  you? 
I  '11  see  you  to-night.  Stay  with  Pittsey."  He  found 
himself  looking  to  Pittsey 's  high  spirits  as  an  intoxi 
cant  against  depression.  He  added  guiltily  as  he  helped 
Conroy  aboard  another  car:  "I  '11  hide  your  things 
under  your  bed— in  case  he  comes." 

He  came. 

And  he  must  have  come  hard  on  the  heels  of  his  tele 
gram,  for  he  arrived  at  the  boarding  house  soon  after 
midday,  and  mounted  heavily  to  the  boys'  room  after 


164  DON-A-DREAMS 

a  gruff  "I  '11  find  them"  addressed  to  Mrs.  Stewart  at 
the  foot  of  the  stairs.  He  filled  the  doorway  like  a  huge 
and  angry  obstruction  to  their  plans.  ' '  Where  is  he  ?  " 
he  demanded. 

Don  answered,  at  bay :  ' '  He  's  not  here.    He  's  out. ' ' 

"What  's  he  been  doing?" 

Don  stammered  a  confused  explanation  of  Conroy's 
misbehavior,  apologetically.  Mr.  McLean  heard  him 
through  with  a  worried  glare,  blocking  the  door.  "Why 
didn't  you  write  and  tell  me  what  was  going  on?" 

"I  didn't  know.  He  didn't  let  me  know.  He  left 
me  here  when  he  went  into  Residence.  I  could  n  't 
afford—" 

Mr.  McLean  tossed  his  hat  on  the  bed,  and  sat  down 
in  a  chair  that  received  him  creakingly.  ' '  He  's  had  too 
much  money,"  he  summed  it  up.  His  bulky  shoulders 
sank  down  on  him  in  a  way  that  gave  him  an  appear 
ance  of  stricken  weariness,  and  though  he  kept  his  eyes 
fixed  on  Don  it  was  with  a  blank  gaze  that  did  not 
seem  to  see  the  boy.  ' '  Things  have  been  made  too  easy 
for  him. ' '  He  fingered  his  beard,  and  plucked  it  impa 
tiently,  frowning.  "Should  have  looked  after  him." 

"He — he  's  all  right,"  Don  tried  to  console  him. 
"It  was  n't  his  fault.  The  boys'  he  got  in  with— they 
led  him  on  to  it." 

"Does  he  say  what  he  's  going  to  do?" 

"Well"— Don  drew  a  long  breath— "I  'm  leaving 
college.  I  quarrelled  with  father  about  studying  law. 
I  'm  going  to  New  York  with  a  friend  who  knows  the 
city  and  Conroy  wants  to  go  with  me.  We  '11  find 
something  to  do  there— some  work.  We  're  wasting  our 


THE  DAY-DREAMEE  165 

time  here.  I  think  it  '11  be  a  good  thing  for  him.  We  '11 
not  have  enough  money  to  more  than  pay  board." 

His  uncle  had  focussed  a  surprised  stare  on  him. 
"What  sort  of  work?" 

"Why,  anything  we  can  find." 

Mr.  McLean  made  a  mouth  and  shook  his  head.  ' '  New 
York!"  he  said.  "Ten  thousand  people  are  looking  for 
work  in  New  York.  Where  is  he  1  I  '11  take  him  home 
with  me." 

"I'm  afraid  he  won't  go,  sir,"  Don  replied  with  a 
sudden  daring.  "He  's  afraid— and  I  guess  he  's 
ashamed.  He  knew  you  were  coming ;  they  refused  pay 
ment  on  his  check  at  the  bank.  He  would  n  't  come  back 
here  with  me  for  fear  you'd  find  him." 

"Where  is  he?" 

"I  don't  know." 

Mr.  McLean  shifted  irritably  in  his  chair.  "Wants 
to  run  away,  does  he?" 

"He  's— he  's  not— He  hasn't  been  doing  anything 
very  wrong,"  Don  pleaded,  "except  the  drinking,  and 
that— he  's  been  led  into  that." 

Mr.  McLean  did  not  listen.  He  took  a  cigar  from 
an  upper  pocket  of  his  waistcoat,  struck  a  match  and 
puckered  his  eyes  on  the  smoke.  "Huh!"  he  granted 
over  his  thoughts.  He  began  to  scrutinize  Don  medi 
tatively,  and  the  boy  looked  away.  It  was  evident 
that  a  decision  was  coming  out  of  the  silence.  Don  did 
not  speak. 

His  uncle  asked:  "Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  earn 
your  own  living— away  from  home?" 

"No." 


166  DON-A-DREAMS 

"No.  Neither  does  he."  He  relapsed  into  thought 
again. 

Don  waited. 

' '  Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  be  on  the  streets  without 
enough  to  eat  1  No. ' '  He  chewed  his  cigar.  He  grum 
bled  :  ' '  It  would  n  't  hurt  him  to  learn. ' '  He  shook  his 
head.  He  muttered,  in  his  beard:  "Boys  nowadays — 
Huh!" 

Suddenly  he  asked:  "How  much  money  have  you?" 

' '  I  have  a  hundred  and  fifty-seven  dollars.  And  Con 
has  a  little — I  don't  know  how  much — twenty-some  dol 
lars." 

He  smoked.    "Will  you  look  after  him?" 

^•"Yes."      . 

After  another  interval  of  communion  with  his  cigar, 
he  demanded:  "Will  you  write  to  me?" 

"Yes." 

' '  Will  you  promise  not  to  write  to  me  for  money  for 
him  unless  he  has  n 't  enough  to  buy  food  ? ' ' 

"I  '11  promise  not  to  write  to  you  for  money  at  all." 

' '  No,  you  won 't.  I  don 't  want  that.  I  want  him  to 
have  to  work,  but  I  don't  want  him  to  have  to  starve. 
.  .  And  you  're  not  to  let  him  know  that  I  'm  sending 
you  money  for  him,  do  you  understand?" 

"I  '11  not  let  him  know  anything  about  it  unless  you 
wish  me  to." 

"Don't  let  him  know  that  I  'm  sending  him  money— 
that's  all." 

"Aunt  Jane,"  Don  hinted.  "Is  she  to  know?" 

Mr.  McLean  looked  at  him  with  an  amused  apprecia 
tion  of  his  opinion  of  Aunt  Jane's  ability  to  keep  a 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  167 

secret.  '"No  one  's  to  know  but  you  and  me.  No  one, 
now,  understand?" 

Don  understood. 

Mr.  McLean  reflected  slowly.  "Now  look  here,"  he 
said,  ' '  I  could  take  him  home  and  put  him  to  work,  but 
I  don't  want  to  make  a  whipped  cur  of  him.  And  I 
don't  want  to  treat  him  the  way  the  old  people  treated 
me.  I  want  him  to  find  his  feet— if  he  can.  And  I 
want  you  to  help  him." 

' '  Yes,  sir.     I  'understand. ' ' 

"When  are  you  going?" 

"To-morrow." 

"To-morrow,  eh?     What  does  your  father  say?" 

"I  don't  know.    I  haven't  heard  from  him  yet." 

"Running  away,  too,  are  you?"  He  stretched  out 
his  thick  leg  with  a  chuckle  and  went  down  in  his  pock 
et  for  a  roll  of  bills.  He  took  off  several  for  himself 
and  held  out  the  remainder  to  Don,  with  his  cigar  fum 
ing  in  his  mouth  and  his  eyes  closed  against  the  bite  of 
smoke  that  drifted  into  them.  "Here." 

' '  I  don 't  need  that,  sir. ' '  Don  said.  ' '  I  have  enough. 
Aunt  Jane  Has  been — " 

' '  Here ! "  he  choked,  one  hand  in  his  pocket,  the  other 
filled  with  bills. 

Don  took  them  from  him  to  relieve  him.  He  removed 
his  cigar  from  below  his  nose,  caught  his  breath,  and 
said:  "  Twenty  dollars  won 't  see  him  far. "  He  reached 
for  his  hat.  "They  '11  teach  you  something  about 
money  before  you  're  there,  long." 

Don  smiled  crookedly  over  his  embarrassment  of 
riches. 


168  DON-A-DREAMS 

"It  's  time  you  learned.    Good-bye." 

' '  Good-bye,  sir, ' '    Don  said  gratefully.    When  his  un 
cle  was  in  the  doorway  again,  he  remembered  to  ask: 
"What  '11  I  tell  him— Conroy?    He  '11  know  you  've 
been  here. ' ' 

"Tell  him?"  Mr.  McLean  answered  savagely. 
"Tell  him  I  think  it  '11  do  him  good  to  go  down  to 
New  York  and  get  some  sense  bumped  into  him.  Tell 
him  we  '11  say  no  more  about  it  if  he  comes  back  to  me 
at  Christmas  with  some  honest  wages  in  his  pocket. 
Tell  him  I  hope  he  '11  learn  what  it  is  to  have  a  good 
home  and  everything  provided  for  him.  That  's  what 
you  '11  tell  him — and  it's  true.  .  .  If  it  isn't  too 
late,"  he  added,  in  another  voice,  "we  '11  make  a  man 
of  him  yet. ' ' 

Don  heard  him  stumping  down  the  stairs.  When  he 
heard  the  front  door  shut  with  a  slam,  he  turned  over 
the  roll  of  bills,  and  grinning  fiercely  he  reached  his 
arms  up  over  his  head,  menacing  the  ceiling  with  the 
triumphant  defiance  of  a  prisoner  who  cries  out  insults 
on  the  walls  of  the  dungeon  he  is  about  to  leave. 

HE  ran  out,  with  the  news,  to  find  Conroy  and  Pitt- 
sey;  and  Conroy  received  it  with  a  doleful  relief  that 
failed  to  see  why  Don  was  so  elated.  The  rest  of  the 
afternoon  was  taken  up  with  paying  Mrs.  Stewart,  mov 
ing  baggage  and  buying  tickets,  for  they  were  to  start 
on  the  early  morning  train.  It  was  not  until  after  sup 
per  that  Don  was  free  to  call  on  "Miss  Margaret," 
whom  he  had  not  seen  since  Saturday.  "No,  I  can't 
come  in,"  he  told  the  maid,  warned  by  the  lights  that 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  169 

the  Kimballs  were  in  the  parlor.  "Tell  her  I  '11  only 
keep  her  a  moment." 

He  saw  her  come  downstairs,  as  if  from  the  isolation 
of  her  bedroom.  He  held  out  his  hand  to  her  from 
the  threshold.  He  said,  in  a  rush:  "I  've  come  to  say 
good-bye.  I  'm  starting,  in  the  morning,  for  New  York 
— with  Conroy.  We  're  leaving  college.  If  you  write 
to  us  at  the  General  Post  Office,  New  York— or  if 
you  're  there— to  send  me  your  address.  We  leave 
to-morrow  morning." 

She  cried,  under  her  breath,  "You  're  not!" 

He  smiled  at  her  reassuringly,  feeling  the  startled 
grip  of  her  fingers  but  unable  to  see  her  face  because 
she  had  her  back  to  the  dim  light.  ' '  Our  baggage  is  at 
the  station." 

She  backed  him  out  on  the  porch  and  shut  the  door 
behind  her.  "You  're  not!  You  must  n't!  It  's— 
Why!  What  are  you  doing!" 

He  laughed.  "I  was  only  wasting  time  here.  I  told 
you  I'd  make  things  come  out  right. 

"Right!" 

"I  couldn't  wait  three  years  to  begin.  I  want  to  be 
at  work.  I  want  to  be  nearer  the— together— you." 

She  dropped  his  hand  as  if  it  had  stung  her.  "Don!" 
It  was  all  she  could  say,  but  the  tone  was  eloquent  of 
emotions  which  he  had  not  expected.  He  waited,  stiff. 
She  went  on,  with  a  shudder  in  her  voice:  "Oh,  you 
must  n't.  I  'm  not— I  'm  not  sure.  .  .  of  myself.  I 
did n 't  mean  to.  I  thought— Oh!"  And  she  began  to 
sob. 

He  put  on  his  hat.    He  opened  his  mouth  to  get  his 


170  DON-A-DREAMS 

breath.  He  found  himself  hoping  insanely  that  he  would 
not  have  to  speak,  because  his  throat  was  trembling  and 
his  lips  were  sticking  to  his  teeth.  He  heard  her,  at  a 
distance  from  him,  weeping  in  a  vast  hush  that  had  set 
tled  down  on  him  like  the  peace  tkat  broods  over  ruins 
in  a  desert,  among  sands,  at  night. 

She  was  saying:  "You  promised— You  said  you'd 
wait.  I  told  you— I  told  you  I'd  try.  I  did  n't  know— 
How  could  I?  I  didn't  mean— I— I  thought  we  'd  be 
good  friends  .  .  .  and  write.  I — I  'm  not  ready  yet. 
I  don't  want  to  think  of— of  marrying  any  one  yet.  I 
want  to  be  free." 

He  was  conscious  only  of  the  need  of  getting  away 
somewhere,  alone.  He  stumbled  to  the  edge  of  the  porch. 
At  a  cry  from  her,  he  stopped  there.  She  came  to  him 
in  the  darkness  and  pleaded:  "Don't!  Don't!  Don't 
do  it.  Don't  leave  college." 

"It  's  too  late,"  he  said  hoarsely,  and  gathering  her 
into  his  arms,  with  a  sort  of  despairing  longing  for 
what  might  have  been,  he  found  her  wet  cheek  with  his 
lips,  and  kissed  her.  "Good-bye,"  he  whispered. 
' '  Don 't  cry.  It  's  all  right.  I  can  stand  it.  I  'm  used 
to  it.  I  can  wait." 

She  released  herself  with  a  sudden  effort  and  disap 
peared  into  the  house. 

HE  returned  to  his  room,  fighting  with  himself  to 
maintain  his  resolution  to  endure  this  disappointment 
too,  to  wait  for  her,  to  work  for  her,  to  be  true  to  her 
in  spite  of  her.  But  even  while  he  was  saying  to  himself 
"I  can  wait!  I  can  wait!"  another  voice  was  asking 


THE  DAY-DREAMER  171 

him  whether  it  was  worth  waiting  for,  whether  this 
belauded  love  was  not  all  vanity  and  vexation, 
whether  there  could  be  anything  divine  in  a  sentiment 
which  had  brought  him  nothing  but  disappointment 
after  disappointment,  whether  he  was  not  playing  the 
fool  to  his  hopes  and  living  in  a  delusion  and  building 
his  future  on  another  make-believe.  He  sat  down  at 
his  bare  table  in  a  room  which  held  nothing  of  his,  now, 
but  his  packed  valise;  and  overcome  by  the  desolation 
of  the  moment  that  stood  empty  between  his  past  and 
his  future,  he  struggled  against  the  tears  that  choked 
him,  clinging  to  his  ideals,  repeating  blindly  ''I  can 
wait!  I  can  wait!" 


PAKT  III 
THE  IDEALIST 


PITTSE Y  ' '  knew  the  ropes, "  as  he  expressed  it.  He 
knew  where  to  find  cheap  lodgings  in  New  York, 
and  he  knew  enough  not  to  remain  in  them.  "We  don't 
board,"  he  said.  "Oh,  no!  Not  in  New  York!  We 
camp.  Wait  till  I  show  you.  We  rent  a  flat  at  twenty 
dollars  a  month.  We  furnish  it  for  twenty  dollars 
more.  We  do  our  own  cooking  on  a  gas  stove  that 
goes  with  the  flat.  Wait  till  I  show  you!  I  have  n't 
been  camp  cook  for  nothing.  Porridge  and  boiled 
eggs  and  coffee  for  breakfast.  Delicatessen  and  stewed 
prunes  for  luncheon.  Beefsteak  and  boiled  potatoes 
and  tea  for  dinner.  Wait  till  I  show  you !  I  've  been 
here  before,  many  's  the  time,  many  's  the  time.  As 
Napoleon  did  n  't  say :  '  The  man  who  storms  New  York, 
conquers  on  his  commissariat ! '  Leave  it  to  me. ' ' 

They  left  it  to  him.  He  foraged  for  them  at  the 
stations  on  their  way  down,  refusing  to  let  them  pay 
dining-car  prices  for  their  meals.  He  conducted 
them  across  the  New  Jersey  ferry,  pointing  out  the 
high  buildings  that  loomed  mountainously  above  the 
New  York  shore,  under  a  sky  that  was  pale  with  the 
reflected  glare  of  hidden  street  lights.  He  led  them 
to  a  fly-blown  restaurant  and  fed  them  on  corned-beef 
hash  "browned  in  the  pan,"  coffee  and  "wheats." 
He  found  them  a  cheap  hotel  where  they  left  their 

175 


176  DON-A-DREAMS 

valises,  in  a  bedroom  that  smelled  like  the  inside  of 
a  rusty  stove.  ("Good  enough,"  he  said.  "The 
proprietor  says  it  'ain't  been  slep'  in'  since  his  wife 
died  in  it.")  He  piloted  them  across  town  to  the 
lights  of  "the  Bialto,"  and  went  through  the  crowds 
with  his  hat  on  the  back  of  his  head,  laughing  and 
talking  like  a  city  boy  taking  hisi  gaping  country 
cousins  around  the  "fair."  And  he  gave  to  the  ex 
pedition  an  air  of  adventurous  dare-deviltry,  of  youth 
ful  self-sufficiency  and  hope,  that  kept  Don  and  Con- 
roy  in  a  continual  flutter  of  excitement  despite  the 
bewilderment  of  their  strange  surroundings  that  would, 
otherwise,  have  disheartened  them. 

To  Donald,  indeed,  the  day  had  been  like  one  of 
those  wild  dreams  in  which  disconnected  scenes  with 
out  locality  and  incidents  without  consequence  follow 
past  in  an  untiring  vividness,  each  snap-shotted  by 
itself  with  the  distinctness  of  an  isolated  experience 
and  each  snatched  away  to  give  place,  in  a  flash,  to 
the  next.  And  this  was  true  not  only  of  the  railway 
journey— with  its  fields  and  houses,  fences  and  roads, 
whipping  past  his  window,  like  the  telegraph  poles, 
in  kaleidoscopic  monotony;  it  was  true  also  of  the 
city  which  he  approached  across  a  Dantesque  black 
water  in  which  the  lights  of  the  ferry-boat  reeled 
weirdly  on  the  swells  that  rose  out  of  a  darkness  and 
engulfed  them — a  mediaeval  city,  apparently  built  on 
a  hill,  window  above  blazing  window,  its  edge  sup 
ported  in  the  water  on  slimed  piles  and  its  towers 
mysteriously  dark  against  a  wan  sky  without  a  star. 

He  went  to  bed,  that  night,  amid  uneasy  millions 


THE  IDEALIST  177 

of  strange  peoples,  on  a  continent  of  crowded  houses 
and  stone  streets  that  was  barren  of  grass  and  trees 
or  the  soil  in  which  they  could  take  root  or  the  natural 
light  to  grow  them.  He  saw  Margaret  and  the  Uni 
versity  and  the  life  he  had  lived,  as  far  from  him  as 
Penelope  and  Ithaca  were  from  the  Grecian  wanderer 
of  the  school  books  when  he  looked  back  at  the  memory 
of  his  home  from  the  lurid  half-light  of  Hades.  He 
fell  asleep,  construing  to  the  clackety-clack  of  the  car 
wheels  of  his  railway  ride:  "Then  answering  him — 
prosephe  polumetis  Odusseus—'O  King  Alcinous — 
panton  arideikete  laSn — truly  it  is  a  beautiful  thing — 
truly  it  is  a  beautiful  thing—"  .  .  .  Dexter  barked. 
He  looked  up  from  his  book  to  see  a  girl  coming  toward 
him  through  the  trees. 

HE  woke  to  a  sunshine  which  made  him  feel  that, 
at  least,  he  was  still  in  the  old  familiar  world,  though 
in  such  a  bewilder ingly  new  part  of  it;  and  he  woke 
to  find  Pittsey  already  planning  their  housekeeping 
with  an  almost  "bridal  enthusiasm,"  as  he  himself 
said. 

That  enthusiasm  carried  them  through  the  remainder 
of  the  week  undepressed  by  the  size  of  the  city  which 
they  had  undertaken  to  carry  by  assault.  It  found 
them  three  rooms  on  the  top  floor  of  an  old  brown- 
stone  house  that  had  once  been  a  family  residence,  in 
one  of  those  streets  leading  into  Fifth  Avenue  which 
have  long  since  been  overtaken  by  the  encroachments 
of  the  business  district.  A  barber  had  the  basement. 
A  publisher  of  cheap  music  occupied  the  ground  floor. 


178  DON-A-DREAMS 

Modistes  and  milliners  crowded  the  second  story.  At 
the  rear  of  the  top  floor,  there  were  two  rooms,  lit 
with  skylights — and  a  dark  kitchen  the  size  of  a  pantry 
—to  be  had  for  $24  a  month.  These  had  once  been 
studios,  but  the  whole  house  had  fallen  into  disrepair, 
its  artistic  tenants  had  abandoned  it,  and  the  owner 
was  holding  it  and  its  neighbors  for  sale  to  any  specu 
lator  who  might  wish  to  pull  it  down  and  put  a 
modern  office  building  on  the  site.  He  let  the  boys 
have  the  "top  floor  rear"  on  condition  that  they  agree 
to  accept  two  weeks'  notice  to  leave  at  any  moment. 
"Three  times  eight  are  twenty-four,"  Pittsey  calcu 
lated.  "It  suits  us  to  the  fraction  of  a  cent." 

' '  The  rooms  are  not  very  large, ' '  Conroy  said  doubt 
fully. 

"They  're  not  large  enough  for  exercise,  that  's 
certain,"  Pittsey  replied.  "But  they  build  them  small 
in  New  York  to  leave  more  room  for  exercise  out  of 
doors."  And  the  joke  served  to  carry  them  over  a 
doleful  examination  of  their  poverty-stricken  apart 
ment. 

The  stairs,  as  they  went  down,  were  bare  as  far  as 
the  next  landing.  Below,  they  were  slippery  with  a 
worn  linoleum.  The  last  flight  was  more  prosperously 
covered  with  a  new  cocoa  matting.  "It  looks  like  the 
gradual  reappearance  of  vegetation  in  a  descent  of 
the  Alps,"  Pittsey  laughed.  They  had  to  laugh  with 
him. 

They  swept  up  the  plaster  of  a  fallen  ceiling  in  the 
rear  room,  mopped  the  uneven  floor,  and  scraped  the 
dirt  from  the  windows  until  Pittsey  stopped  them. 
("Be  economical,"  he  said.  "If  you  take  that  stuff 


THE  IDEALIST  179 

off,  we  '11  have  to  buy  blinds.")  They  shopped  to 
gether  in  department  stores  and  the  "emporiums" 
of  second-hand  furniture,  buying  three  camp  cots 
for  $1.87  each,  a  dining-room  table  for  $3.00,  four 
kitchen  chairs- — "one  for  company" — at  75  cents  each, 
cotton  blankets,  excelsior  mattresses,  cotton-batting 
comfortables,  blue  china  dishes,  knives  and  forks  with 
wooden  handles,  kitchen  utensils  of  tin,  some  hanging 
shelves  for  their  library  and  a  blank  book  for  keeping 
accounts  "on  a  basis  of  three."  They  celebrated  their 
house-warming  with  a  dinner  of  potatoes  boiled  in  their 
"jackets,"  steak  served  in  the  pan  in  which  it  had 
been  fried,  fresh  bread  and  a  pat  of  butter  in  the 
grocer's  wooden  dish.  They  ate  from  a  spread  of  news 
papers  in  lieu  of  a  table-cloth.  And  they  laughed  so 
heartily  at  Pittsey's  foolery  that  he  had  to  warn  them 
to  be  careful.  ("Don't  raise  the  roof.  More  of  that 
ceiling  will  be  coming  down  on  us.") 

It  was  not  until  Conroy  lit  his  pipe  that  the  sub 
ject  in  the  background  of  all  their  thoughts  was 
brought  out  into  the  conversation.  "Well,"  he  said, 
"to-morrow  we  start  to  look  for  work.  What  are  you 
going  to  do,  Pitt?" 

"Me?  I  'm  going  to  start  a  newspaper  article  for 
a  Saturday  'supplement'  on  Camping  Out  in  New 
York  City.  How  about  you?" 

Conroy  reddened.  "I  think  I  know  enough  about 
the  governor's  business  to  be  able  to  get  something  all 
right.  What  are  you  going  to  do,  Don?" 

Don  answered,  truthfully:  "I  don't  know.  I 
have  n't  decided  yet." 

The  fact  of  the  matter  was  that  his  knowledge  of 


180  DON-A-DREAMS 

the  working  world  was  so  vague  and  his  qualifications 
for  any  position  in  it  so  uncertain  that  a  decision  was 
impossible.  There  was  plenty  of  work  to  be  had;  that 
was  evident  from  the  number  of  advertisements  of 
"Help  Wanted — Male"  in  the  morning  papers.  He 
had  made  secret  notes  of  several  possibilities:  a  busi 
ness  "concern"  needed  a  man  to  manage  a  shop,  "ex 
perience  unnecessary,"  salary  "to  begin"  $20  a  week; 
a  large  wholesale  firm  needed  a  man  of  education  to 
act  as  secretary,  salary  $25  a  week;  a  dozen  employ 
ment  agencies  on  Sixth  Avenue  advertised,  in  chalk, 
on  blackboards  beside  their  doors,  for  household  serv 
ants,  clerks  and  stenographers,  hotel  help  and  private 
secretaries.  He  shrank  from  the  personal  servitude 
which  most  of  these  vacancies  required;  he  hoped  to 
find  some  man  of  large  affairs,  like  his  uncle,  who 
needed  an  honest  and  faithful  young  deputy  to  at 
tend  to  the  minor  details  of  business  management 
which  the  head  of  the  house  might  be  unable  to  over 
see  personally.  He  was  assured  of  one  thing:  no 
matter  what  his  need,  he  would  accept  no  position  in 
which  Margaret  could  be  ashamed  to  find  him. 

All  his  thoughts  of  her  had  some  such  tinge  of 
defensive  bitterness.  He  would  work  out  his  own 
salvation,  unassisted  by  the  encouragement  which  he 
had  hoped  to  have  from  her.  He  would  see  to  it  that 
she  should  have  no  cause  to  be  glad  of  her  desertion  of 
him.  He  would  work  for  her  and  wait  for  her,  but 
he  would  never  tell  her  so,  again. 

"Well,"  Pittsey  said,  "let  's  see  where  we  stand." 
He  cleared  a  place  on  the  table  for  the  account  book 


THE  IDEALIST  181 

and  added  up  their  expenditures.  Their  furnishing 
had  cost  them  $12  each;  the  supply  of  food  in  their 
larder,  $3.10;  their  month's  rent,  $8  each;  their 
deposit  to  the  gas  company,  $5;  tips  and  sundries, 
$1.25.  "There  you  are!  For  less  than  twenty-five 
dollars  each,  we  're  set  up  for  life— rent  paid  for  a 
month  and  money  out  at  interest  with  the  gas  company. 
And  unless  we  get  gold-bricked  we  can  live,  now,  for 
$3  a  week  each. ...  eh  ? "  he  crowed.  ' '  How  's  yon  for 
management  ? ' ' 

Don  was  making  a  rapid  calculation  that  he  had 
enough  money  of  his  own  to  keep  him  for  six  months 
at  least.  Conroy  had  laid  a  ten-dollar  bill  beside  his 
plate  and  was  searching  his  pockets  for  more.  "What 
the  dickens,"  he  muttered  in  his  pipe.  "I  must  have 
lost-" 

Pittsey  enjoyed  the  situation.  "I  know!  I  know  the 
feeling.  Where  did  it  go,  eh?  Where  did  it  go? 
Refrain:  'But  what  has  become  of  last  year's  snow?' 
I  '11  write  a  ballad  for  one  of  the  weekly  comics  on 
it. ' '  He  made  a  note  on  the  back  of  an  envelope  from 
his  pocket. 

"That  's  all  right,  Con,"  Donald  put  in.  "I  '11 
carry  your  proportion  until  you  get  things  going." 

They  repaid  Pittsey  what  he  had  expended  for  them. 
He  accepted  it  jocularly.  "Now,  I  'm  the  chef,  you 
know,"  he  said,  "but  you  two  have  to  wash  up.  Get 
to  work.  We  're  going  out  to  see  the  sights  of  a  great 
city,  as  soon  as  you  've  finished. ' ' 

"You  go,  Don,"  Conroy  said.  "I  '11  clean  up  here." 
They  looked  at  him,  surprised.  He  had  an  expression 


182  DON-A-DREAMS 

of  nervous  despondence.  "I  'm  tired,"  he  explained, 
hastily.  "I  'd  sooner  go  to  bed  early." 

And  Don  understood  that  the  fear  of  the  city, 
against  which  he  himself  had  been  fighting,  had  found 
Conroy  the  weaker  in  spite  of  his  greater  physical 
strength. 

DON  went  out  alone  in  the  morning— Conroy  ex 
cusing  himself  with  the  plea  that  he  had  some  letters 
to  write— and  he  proceeded  first  to  the  address  of  a 
mining  company  that  had  advertised  for  an  educated 
young  man  to  do  desk  work.  It  was  a  glorious  May 
morning,  warm  with  sunlight  and  cool  with  a  light 
breeze;  and  the  crowded  pavements  were  noisy  with 
a  joyful  activity  that  seemed  to  move  to  the  gay  tunes 
of  street  pianos,  as  inspiringly  as  an  army  on  the 
march.  That  immense  jocundity,  which  sparkles  in 
the  clean  air  of  Manhattan  on  such  days,  inspired 
Don  as  it  inspired  the  facetious  truck-drivers  and 
cab-men  abusing  each  other  in  a  jam  of  traffic, 
the  good-natured  policeman  who  separated  them,  the 
smiling  pedestrians  who  dodged  under  the  horses' 
heads,  the  loiterers  who  paused  on  the  curb  to  grin 
and  comment,  the  shrill  street  gamin,  the  eager  men 
and  women  hurrying  by  on  the  walks  with  side 
glances  of  amusement — all  the  bustling  life  of  that 
thronged  island  which  seems  to  catch  from  its  sea 
breezes  some  of  the  recklessness  that  makes  sailors  so 
irresponsible,  so  apparently  care-free,  so  good-natured 
in  spite  of  their  obscure  toil  and  the  uncertainty  of 
their  fates. 


THE  IDEALIST  183 

Don  walked  with  a  light  step,  watching  the  busy 
activities  of  which  he  felt  himself  a  part,  as  pleased 
as  a  recruit  enrolled  among  veterans  and  willing  to 
accept  the  hardships  of  the  campaigns  of  labor  as 
gaily  as  they.  After  all,  this  was  life;  this  was  the 
work-field  of  civilization,  where  labor  sowed  and 
sweated ;  this  was  the  place  for  a  man  to  be— not  back 
there,  among  the  college  loiterers  of  culture,  discuss 
ing  the  crops.  He  swung  into  Broadway  with  his 
head  high,  looking  for  the  number  of  the  office  build 
ing  where  he  was  to  begin  his  service.  It  was  good 
to  be  a  useful  member  of  society;  it  gave  a  man  dig 
nity  and  assurance.  Whatever  the  object  and  mean 
ing  of  life  might  be — whatever  the  port  to  which  all 
this  bustle  was  hastening— it  was  a  man's  duty  to 
pull  on  his  oar  with  his  fellows  below  on  the  benches, 
not  to  loaf  on  deck  vainly  studying  the  impenetrable 
mists  that  surrounded  him. 

He  mounted  the  stone  steps  of  his  building  and 
passed  between  red  granite  pillars  into  a  hall  of  tiles 
and  mosaics.  A  semi-circle  of  elevators  sucked  in  and 
poured  out  two  trickling  streams  of  passengers  coming 
and  going.  A  young  man  in  a  braided  blue  uniform 
gave  them  the  word  to  start,  with  a  curt  c '  Three !  .  .  . 
Go  on,  Seven!  .  .  .  One!" 

Don  asked  him:  "What  floor  is  the  Phoenix  Com 
pany  on?" 

He  dismissed  another  car  before  he  replied :  ' '  There  's 
about  'steen  hundred  of  you  fellahs  up  there  already, 
all  after  one  job.  You  could  n't  get  out  of  the  cage  if 
you  went  up.  You  might  's  well  go  an'  chase  yourself 


184  DON-A-DREAMS 

around  the  block  for  an  hour  or  two  till  they  kill  a  few 
million  of  them  off.  Go  ahead,  Nine ! ' ' 

Don  hesitated— said  meekly,  "Thanks"— and  went 
out. 

The  roar  of  traffic  greeted  him  with  a  new  note  of 
busy  indifference.  He  stood  on  the  lowest  step  of  the 
entrance  undecided  which  way  to  turn,  until  a  mes 
senger  boy  bumped  him  from  behind,  mischievously, 
and  sent  him  into  the  current  of  passers-by.  He  was 
carried  down  the  street  to  an  eddy  at  the  corner. 
There  he  took  out  his  notes  of  "Help  Wanted,"  obliv 
ious  to  the  "Pulish,  sir?  Pulish?"  of  a  bootblack 
whose  chairs  were  under  the  shelter  of  an  awning 
beside  him.  He  found  the  address  of  the  business 
"concern"  that  needed  a  man  to  manage  its  shop;  and 
having  inquired  the  way  of  the  insistent  polisher,  he 
set  out  again  more  soberly. 

The  business  "concern"  proved  to  be  the  basement 
workshop  of  a  little  foreigner,  in  varnish-stained  apron 
and  soiled  shirt-sleeves,  who  renovated  furniture  and 
sold  "antiques."  He  explained  eagerly  that  he  had 
invented  and  patented  a  new  process  of  "tufting" 
upholstery,  and  he  needed  a  man  to  push  the  patent 
for  him  while  he  was  busy  in  the  shop.  He  expatiated, 
in  a  confused  but  animated  dialect,  on  the  money- 
making  possibilities  of  his  machine,  puffing  out  his 
cheeks  and  waving  his  hands.  Of  course,  he  would 
have  to  have  a  guarantee.  .  .  .  When  Don,  at  last, 
understood  that  the  needed  "manager"  was  expected 
to  put  "fife  hundered"  dollars  into  the  patent,  he 
merely  shook  his  head  and  left  the  man  gesticulating. 


THE  IDEALIST  185 

The  sun  was  hot.  His  heels  were  sore  with  the 
jarring  of  the  flagstone  sidewalks.  He  went  despond 
ently  back  through  interminable  and  noisy  streets,  to 
the  next  address  in  his  notes;  and  he  was  glad  to  sit 
in  an  outer  office  there,  among  a  score  of  other  ap 
plicants  for  the  vacancy,  until  his  turn  should  come 
to  enter  to  the  manager.  Some  of  his  rivals  were  as 
young  as  he,  but  dressed  with  a  cheap  smartness,  their 
trousers  turned  up  at  the  ankles  stylishly,  their  col 
lars  high  above  "puff"  ties  that  concealed  the  absence 
of  a  starched  shirtfront.  Some  were  older  men,  piti 
ably  meek  and  patient  in  their  expressions  and  their 
attitudes,  neat  with  the  neatness  of  poverty  that  tries 
to  maintain  a  good  appearance  in  clothes  brushed 
threadbare.  Some  were  stolid  youths,  in  bagged  and 
wrinkled  trousers,  in  shoes  worn  down  at  the  heel, 
frankly  poor  and  indifferent  to  it.  One  was  a  con 
sumptive  with  an  echoing  cough  which  he  tried  to 
cover,  mechanically,  behind  the  long  fingers  of  his 
clerk's  hand,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  blank  wall  that 
faced  him,  apparently  unconscious  of  the  hollow  up 
roar  which  burst  from  him  with  an  irritating  fre 
quency  on  the  silence. 

The  manager  appeared  suddenly  at  the  door,  over 
the  shoulders  of  a  rejected  applicant,  and  announced 
with  exasperation :  ' '  Now,  there  's  no  use  your  waiting 
here  if  you  have  n't  had  experience.  We  want  an 
experienced  man.  I  told  you  that  before.  And  you 
must  have  references.  I  '11  not  take  anyone  without 
good  references." 

Don  took  up  his  hat  and  withdrew  apologetically. 


186  DON-A-DREAMS 

He  went  back  to  the  rooms  for  luncheon,  dragging 
his  steps.  A  street  piano  tried  to  cheer  him ;  he  saw 
the  perspiration  on  the  face  of  the  lean  Italian  woman 
who  strained  at  the  crank. 


II 


HE  received  a  letter  from  Margaret,  that  afternoon, 
and  he  read  it  standing  in  the  portico  of  the  General 
Post  Office,  where  the  traffic  of  Park  Bow  meets  the 
traffic  of  Broadway,  in  a  brawling  of  cross-currents 
over  worn  paving  stones,  at  the  bottom  of  a  canyon 
of  high  buildings;  and  with  that  noise  in  his  ears, 
pressing  upon  him  the  sense  of  the  struggle  in  which 
he  was  engaged,  he  read  her  accusations,  her  defense 
and  her  apology  blankly,  word  after  word,  feeling 
that  it  was  all  an  old  matter  of  which  he  had  lost  the 
emotion.  He  took,  with  relief,  the  news  that  she  was 
going  abroad  for  the  summer,  with  her  mother;  it 
would  give  him  time  to  ''find  his  feet"  in  New  York. 
He  missed  a  hint  that  Mrs.  Richardson's  investments 
had  been  ill-advised  and  unprofitable,  and  that  the 
cheaper  living  in  Germany— where  the  study  of  music 
might  be  continued— would  be  welcome  to  her.  He 
put  the  letter  in  an  outer  pocket,  with  his  newspaper, 
and  tore  open  an  envelop  from  his  father. 

Mr.    Gregg  informed  him,   briefly,   that  his   action 
had  been  a  cause  of  great  grief  to  his  mother;  that 


THE  IDEALIST  187 

it  was  unreasonable,  without  excuse,  and  rash ;  that  his 
home  was  waiting  for  him  whenever  he  wished  to  re 
turn  to  it,  but  that  he  should  have  no  assistance  if 
he  remained  away.  "I  can  scarcely  believe,"  he  wrote, 
"that  a  son  of  mine  will  prefer  to  live  on  the  charity 
of  relatives.  A  good  position  can  be  obtained  for  you 
in  Coulton.  If,  at  any  time,  you  desire  to  come  back 
to  it,  and  have  not  funds,  write  to  me  and  I  shall  be 
glad  to  forward  you  your  railroad  ticket." 

Don  tore  up  the  letter  and  tossed  it  into  the  gutter 
as  he  crossed  the  street.  No!  He  was  launched. 
Coulton  and  the  past  had  already  dropped  below  the 
horizon  behind  him.  And  he  could  not  hope  to  have 
Margaret  with  him  again  until  he  reached  that  shore 
of  his  destiny  which  was  still  so  distant,  so  uncertain, 
so  far  beyond  sight  of  fancy  even.  He  knew  that  the 
voyage  was  not  going  to  be  plain  sailing  in  a  fair 
wind;  there  would  be  calms  and  storms  and  all  the 
delays  and  accidents  of  life.  But  some  day,  of  course, 
he  would  arrive;  and  then  (he  thought),  looking  back 
at  the  hardships  and  the  despairs,  how  sorry  he  should 
be  that  they  were  done  with,  and  how  proud  that  he 
had .  weathered  them,  and  how  amused  to  remember 
that  he  had  almost  given  up  hope  under  them,  that 
it  had  seemed  impossible  they  could  ever  come  to  an 
end,  that  he  had  longed  for  this  peaceful  conclusion 
which  was  now  so  tame  a  day  compared  with  the  ad 
venturous  struggles  that  had  brought  him  to  it. 

IN  that  mood  he  continued  his  unsuccessful  search 
for  employment.  Learning  the  need  of  "references," 


188  DON-A-DREAMS 

he  wrote  to  his  uncle  and  to  the  Dean  of  the  Uni 
versity,  and  received  the  conventional  replies.  But 
these  were  of  no  avail  to  introduce  him  to  work  for 
which  he  had  no  particular  qualifications,  in  a  city 
of  which  he  had  had  no  experience,  over  rivals  who 
had  none  of  his  shamefacedness  and  who  elbowed  him 
out  of  the  way  with  a  pushing  self-assertion  that  made 
him  blush  for  them.  He  answered  every  likely  ad 
vertisement  and  registered  with  three  different  em 
ployment  agencies  that  accepted  his  $2  fee  one  day 
and  appeared  to  have  forgotten  him  on  the  morrow; 
and  he  clung  to  his  hopes  with  a  doggedness  that 
would  not  admit  discouragement.  But  he  became  sore 
with  a  sort  of  sulky  pride,  refusing  to  unbend  to  the 
degrading  necessities  of  his  situation;  and  he  made 
his  applications  for  work  as  haughtily  as  a  shop-girl 
who  has  been  asked  to  show  samples  and  who  answers 
all  her  customer's  inquiries  laconically,  with  a  studied 
indifference. 

Meanwhile,  Conroy  had  become  morosely  apathetic. 
He  sat  in  their  rooms  smoking  at  a  window  that 
looked  out  on  dead  walls.  He  wrote  letters  to  which 
he  never  seemed  to  get  any  replies.  He  went  out 
silently,  and  after  being  on  the  streets  for  hours  he 
came  back  to  his  meals  tired  but  without  any  appetite ; 
and  in  conversation  with  Pittsey,  he  betrayed  an  idler 's 
acquaintance  with  the  sights  of  the  waterfront 
and  the  Ghetto.  He  accepted  money  from  Don  un 
happily,  unable  to  meet  his  cousin's  eyes;  and  he  tried 
to  make  himself  useful  by  doing  more  than  his  share 
of  the  housework,  by  washing  the  dishes  when  the 
other  boys  were  out,  and  by  bringing  Italian  cheeses 


THE  IDEALIST  189 

and  Chinese  preserves  back  with  him  from  his  long 
absences.  Once  he  bought  a  bottle  of  liquid  polish 
and  blackened  the  gas  stove. 

In  spite  of  Pittsey's  efforts  to  keep  up  a  cheerful 
spirit  in  the  apartment,  their  meals  became  "lugubri 
ous  feeds"  as  he  complained.  "What  's  wrong  with 
you  two?"  he  remonstrated.  "Here  you  are,  seeing 
New  York  inexpensively,  with  all  the  comforts  of 
home!  And  you  're  down  in  the  mouth  because  a 
Wall  street  millionaire  has  n't  offered  you  a  partner 
ship  and  a  private  yacht.  What  do  you  expect  ?  Look 
at  me.  If  I  went  to  Newspaper  Row  asking  for  work, 
I  'd  never  get  past  the  office  boys  at  the  doors.  But 
if  I  send  in  an  article  through  the  mail,  and  an  editor 
likes  it,  I  get  a  little  check.  If  I  do  it  again,  I  have 
an  introduction  to  Mr.  Editor.  I  keep  it  up.  In  six 
months  I  begin  to  ask  for  a  place  on  the  staff.  You 
two  start  by  asking  for  the  place  first,  and  give  up 
hope  when  the  office  boy  says  'Nothin'  doin'.'  What 
do  you  expect?  Miracles?  Don't  be  so  blamed  un 
reasonable.  You  're  not  the  heroes  of  a  novel,  you 
know;  impossibilities  are  n't  going  to  happen  to  you 
just  to  help  out  the  plot !" 

He  was  rolling  out  cracker  crumbs  with  a  milk 
bottle  preparatory  to  baking  a  dish  of  what  he  called 
"tomato  slush."  Conroy  was  cleaning  smelts  with  a 
penknife.  Don  was  laying  the  table. 

Conroy  said:  "Oh,  you  're  all  right.  You  have 
something  to  sell.  I  have  nothing  and  I  *m  in  debt." 

"You  need  n't  worry  about  that,"  Don  put  in. 
"The  money  's  as  much  yours  as  mine." 

"How?  .     .  How  is  it?" 


190  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Well— I  've  saved  it  out  of  what  I  borrowed  from 
Aunt  Jane,  this  winter." 

" Yes,  but  it  's  yours.  You  borrowed  it."  He  tossed 
a  smelt  into  the  pan,  with  a  resigned  bitterness.  ' '  They 
refuse  to  lend  me  a  cent." 

Don,  his  ears  tingling,  pretended  to  be  silently  ab 
sorbed  in  the  setting  of  the  table;  he  foresaw  some 
of  the  difficulties  that  would  develop  out  of  this 
situation  in  which  his  uncle  had  placed  him,  and  he 
disliked  the  double  part  which  he  would  have  to  play. 
His  life  seemed  to  him  to  be  becoming  confusingly 
complex,  with  this  duplicity  in  his  relation  with  Con- 
roy  and  with  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  work  by  a 
straightforward  application  for  it.  Pittsey's  insidious 
pursuit  of  a  place  on  a  newspaper  seemed  to  him  too 
patiently  crafty.  There  was  something  degrading  in 
such  a  crawling  policy. 

This  was  of  a  piece  with  the  Quixotism  which  had 
kept  him  going,  day  after  day,  to  old  Mr.  Vandever,  the 
philanthropic  agent  of  an  anonymous  millionaire,  who 
was  in  need  of  a  private  secretary — according  to  Mr. 
Vandever — and  who  had  commissioned  Mr.  Vandever, 
among  other  things,  to  find  a  suitable  young  man  for 
the  position.  Don  had  watched  a  score  of  other  ap 
plicants  for  the  place  file  from  the  waiting-room  into 
Mr.  Vandever 's  office,  not  to  reappear;  but  when  he 
followed,  in  his  turn,  he  was  received  by  that  benev 
olent  old  gentleman  with  a  quick  smile  of  relief 
that  was  an  unspoken  acceptance  of  him  as  the  single 
likely  applicant  among  all  these  impossible  ones. 
When  he  had  given  up  his  $3  registration  fee— "which 


THE  IDEALIST  191 

was  unfortunately  necessary  in  order  to  pay  office 
rent"— he  went  out  a  side  door  warmed  by  the  mild 
kindliness  of  Mr.  Vandever's  manner,  touched  by  the 
charming  tenderness  of  his  old  smile,  and  hopeful 
with  the  assurance  that  his  application  would  be  suc 
cessful  "without  doubt — without  reasonable  doubt." 
Mr.  Vandever  would  write  to  him.  When  no  letter 
came,  and  two  subsequent  calls  failed  to  carry  him 
past  the  girl  who  had  her  desk  beside  the  outer  door— 
but  showed  him  the  office  still  crowded  in  response 
to  the  advertisement  which  still  stood  in  the  morning 
papers — he  refused  to  credit  the  suspicion  which  he 
could  not  help  but  feel.  For  if  an  old  man,  genial, 
educated,  fine-mannered,  sweet-faced  and  silvery- 
haired,  could  be  a  thief  and  a  hypocrite,  then  the 
whole  world  could  be  a  gigantic  swindle,  there  could 
be  no  faith  in  anyone,  and  the  sunlight  on  the  streets 
would  be  a  gilding  of  depravity  to  make  the  heart  sick. 
Don  could  not  believe  it ;  or,  rather,  instinctively,  he 
would  not.  He  preferred  to  keep  his  faith  in  his  kind. 
When  his  last  call  found  Mr.  Vandever's  office  to  let, 
he  went  away  without  asking  any  questions,  for  fear 
that  he  might  hear  something  shameful. 

"Besides,"  Pittsey  went  on— dipping  the  smelts  in 
milk  and  rolling  them  in  flour — "this  is  the  beginning 
of  the  summer,  the  dull  season.  Every  firm  in  town 
is  laying  off  men.  You  should  get  your  hooks  into 
something  now,  and  be  ready  to  land  it  in  the  fall  .  .  . 
Here,  Donald  MacDonald,  get  to  work  and  make  us 
some  toast.  Do  you  know  which  side  of  the  bread  to 
brown  ? ' ' 


192  DON-A-DREAMS 

"No,"  Don  answered  simply. 

' '  Both  sides. ' '  Pittsey  laughed.  ' '  You  're  the  poor 
est  pair  of  kitchen  apprentices  I  ever  saw."  He 
bustled  around,  with  the  deftness  of  a  restaurant 
waiter,  adding  forgotten  dishes  to  the  table,  watching 
the  "tomato  slush"  browning  in  the  oven,  or  turning 
his  smelts  in  the  sputtering  frying  pan.  "Cut  your 
bread  thicker,"  he  directed  Don.  "Your  toast  will 
be  as  dry  as  cinders  .  .  .  Go  out  and  buy  us  the  squeeze 
of  a  lemon,"  he  ordered  Conroy.  "Three  for  five, 
they  should  be.  I  'd  make  you  a  fish  sauce,  if  I  had 
a  recipe  .  .  .  When  I  graduate  out  of  newspaper  work 
into  literature,  the  first  book  I  write  will  be  a  cook 
book.  'Butter  the  size  of  an  egg.'  '  He  dropped  a 
slice  of  it  into  his  frying  pan.  "That  's  how  the 
common  cook  books  put  it.  And  you  're  supposed 
to  know  it  was  a  hen  and  not  an  ostrich  that  laid  the 
egg!  I  '11  change  all  that  .  .  .  Not  on  the  top,  you 
clam!  Your  toast  will  taste  like  a  gasometer.  Do 
it  in  the  lower  oven,  on  the  broiler.  Put  it  up  close 
to  the  flame." 

The  walls  of  the  shabby  dining-room  had  been  cov 
ered  with  posters,  gathered  by  the  enterprising  Pittsey 
from  news-stands  and  book-shops.  Between  the  win 
dows — where  a  leaking  roof  had  discolored  the  plaster 
— he  had  tacked  up  a  collection  of  printed  "letters 
of  rejection"  which  had  come  to  him,  with  returned 
manuscripts,  from  newspaper  offices  and  the  editors 
of  magazines.  Don's  student  lamp  lit  the  table,  with 
its  "print  table-cloth"  (as  Pittsey  called  the  spread 
of  newspapers),  its  sugar  in  a  tobacco  tin,  its  milk 


THE  IDEALIST  193 

in  a  bottle,  its  "poorhouse"  dishes  and  its  unpainted 
kitchen  chairs.  But  the  place  had  come  to  have  a 
home-like  and  familiar  look  to  Don;  and  it  had,  for 
him,  a  tone  of  youthful  defiance  of  adversity  that 
was  loudest  in  Pittsey's  contemptuous  display  of  the 
editor's  regrets  that  they  had  not  found  his  contribu 
tions  "available." 

Having  put  his  bread  in  the  oven,  Don  stood  before 
these  letters  with  the  smile  which  they  always  encour 
aged  in  him.  He  wished  that  he  might  add  to  them 
similar  letters  from  all  the  offices  at  which  he  had 
applied  for  work;  they  would  fill  the  wall!  When 
Pittsey  became  famous — as  he  would,  of  course,  some 
day— what  a  comment  on  editorial  incapacity  this  col 
lection  would  be! 

Pittsey  put  his  head  in  the  door.  "Excuse  me  for 
intruding,  King  Alfred,"  he  said,  "but  I  thought  you 
might  like  to  know  that  your  toast  's  in  flames. ' ' 


III 


DON  found  no  work  that  he  could  do.  Conroy, 
obviously,  was  no  longer  even  looking  for  any.  And 
when  Pittsey  at  last  sold  a  "special"  to  a  Saturday 
"supplement,"  the  sight  of  his  $8  check— received  in 
the  morning  mail  and  produced  triumphantly  at  the 
breakfast  table— was  like  the  first  nugget  to  a  camp 
of  despairing  prospectors.  "Money!"  he  gloated. 
"Eight  of  them!  Hully  Gee,  look  at  it,  boys!  The 

13 


194  DON-A-DREAMS 

real  thing!  Would  you  cash  it  or  have  it  framed? 
The  'Nassau  National.'  Do  you  suppose  they  're  good 
for  it?" 

The  others  were  smiling  doubtfully,  between  pleas 
ure  in  his  success  and  envy  of  it.  He  understood  the 
expression.  "There  's  millions  where  that  came 
from,"  he  said,  "and  all  you  need  is  a  pen  to  dig  out 
some.  Why  don't  you  get  after  it?  Why  don't  you 
write  up  the  adventures  of  a  poor  but  honest  young 
man  looking  for  a  job  in  a  great,  big  city,  eh?" 

There  was  no  reason  why  they  did  not — except,  per 
haps,  that  they  could  not. 

"Give  ovah!"  Pittsey  retorted.  "Any  man  can 
write  'if  he  only  abandons  his  mind  to  it.'  Get  a  pad 
of  fresh  white  paper  and  let  yourself  go.  You  might 
as  well  be  doing  something  while  you  're  not  refusing 
applications  for  your  valuable  services  down  town. 
Try  it." 

They  tried  it.  Conroy  gave  it  up  after  a  morning 
spent  biting  the  end  of  his  pen-handle,  his  face  as 
blank  as  his  paper;  he  was,  apparently,  too  home-sick 
and  dispirited  to  have  a  thought  of  anything  else. 
Don  persisted,  tutored  by  Pittsey,  who  groaned  in 
private  over  the  stilted  English  and  the  philosophic 
stodginess  of  his  pupil's  work.  "Put  some  ginger  into 
it,"  he  counseled.  "This  is  as  tame  as  if  you  'd 
written  it  for  old  Cotton.  A  newspaper  does  n't  want 
a  'not-only-but-also'  thesis  on  the  subject.  It  wants 
some  facts.  If  you  have  n't  any,  make  some  up.  You 
might  have  written  this  without  ever  seeing  New  York 
or  an  employment  agency.  Are  n't  some  of  them 
fakes — some  of  these  agencies?" 


THE  IDEALIST  195 

Don  said  he  did  not  know.  He  objected  that  he  did 
not  wish  to  write  himself  up— his  own  experiences. 

"Why  not?" 

"I  don't  know." 

The  fact  was— as  Pittsey  slowly  learned— Don  had 
an  obstinate  delicacy  that  shrank  from  putting  any 
of  his  own  emotions  into  print.  He  could  not  look 
into  his  heart  and  write,  as  the  poet  directed.  He 
wrote,  as  he  would  talk  to  a  stranger,  in  generalities, 
"in  twaddle"  as  Pittsey  complained,  with  a  masculine 
reticence  in  all  things  that  concerned  himself. 

"Well,  go  ahead,"  Pittsey  said,  at  last.  "Do  it 
your  own  way." 

He  went  ahead  for  three  weeks,  without  a  glimmer 
of  encouragement  and  really  without  a  chance  of  suc 
cess.  And  then  he  confessed,  blushing:  "Anyway,  I 
don't  see  the  use  of  writing  stuff  like  this.  I  don't 
see  why  anyone  should  care  to  read  it.  It  does  n't 
really  mean  anything  to  anybody,  does  it?" 

"It  's  one  way  of  earning  a  living,"  Pittsey 
countered. 

"I  know,  but— Well,  if  a  man  's  really  working, 
if  he  's  only  sawing  wood  or  cleaning  the  streets  or 
driving  a  wagon,  he  's  doing  something  that  has  to 
be  done.  He  's  helping  things  along— the  world,  you 
know — civilization.  He  's — " 

Pittsey  interrupted  him  with  high  laughter. 
"Well,  you  are  a  joke!  You  're  the  funniest  ever! 
Let  the  world  get  along  any  way  it  pleases.  It  's  your 
getting  along  that  concerns  you." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  Don  mumbled,  "but— I  don't  care. 
It  does  n't  seem  worth  while  to  me." 


196  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Don't  do  it,  then!" 

' '  Well,  perhaps  I  would,  if  I  could.  I  don 't  know . . . 
I  can't,  anyway." 

"Have  you  found  anything  better?" 

Don  shook  his  head.  "What  's  Con  doing?  Does 
he  ever  tell  you?" 

Pittsey  made  a  significant  movement  of  his  hand  to 
his  lips,  throwing  back  his  head. 

Don  whispered,   aghast:   "Drinking?" 

Pittsey  nodded,  with  a  tolerant  smile  for  Don's 
blindness.  "Don't  tell  him  I  told  you.  He  's  lost 
his  nerve." 

IT  was  late  that  evening.  Pittsey  had  gone  to  gather 
material  for  an  article  on  "Amateur's  Night"  in  a 
Bowery  theatre.  Conroy  had  been  sitting  beside  the 
dining  table  for  hours,  smoking  sourly,  his  feet  on  a 
chair  before  him  and  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  toes  of  his 
shoes.  Don  had  been  preparing  to  speak  to  him,  cover 
ing  his  irresolution  by  pretending  to  write  a  letter  while 
he  was  trying  to  make  up  his  mind  how  to  begin. 

He  had  asked :  ' '  Found  anything  to  do,  Con  ? ' '  Con 
roy  had  grunted:  "Not  a  d thing."  And  there 

was  no  more  to  be  said  of  that  matter. 

Ten  minutes  later,  he  had  asked:  "Heard  anything 
from  home?"  And  Conroy  had  answered,  in  the  same 
tone  as  before:  "Not  a  d word." 

Don  scratched  perfunctorily  at  the  letter— which,  he 
knew,  he  would  have  to  destroy.  "Have  you  written 
to  them?"  he  asked. 

"No." 

"Why  not?" 


THE  IDEALIST  197 

"Why  should  I?" 

"Don't  you  think  they  'd  like  to  hear  from  you?" 

"No." 

"Why  not?" 

Conroy  did  not  answer. 

Don  put  down  his  pen,  too  nervous  to  hold  it.  "You 
know,"  he  said,  "Uncle  John  asked  me  to  look  after 
you  here.  He  'd  like  to  know  how  you  're  getting  on. ' ' 

"Write  and  tell  him  then,"  Conroy  replied  bitterly. 
"He  ought  to  be  glad  to  hear." 

"What  '11  I  tell  him?" 

"Tell  him  what  you  blame  well  please." 

Don  swallowed.  "That  you  're  drinking  still?" 

His  voice  went  dry  on  the  last  word.  The  silence 
stood  staring  at  him,  holding  its  breath. 

Conroy 's  head  turned  slowly,  his  jaws  shut  on  his 
pipe.  His  eyes  caught  the  glow  from  the  lamp  and 
glistened  with  two  danger  signals  of  light  in  his  white 
face.  "What  do  you  mean  by  that?" 

It  was  too  late  to  draw  back.  Don  arranged  his 
sheets  of  note-paper  with  a  hand  that  in  some  way  re 
minded  him  of  his  father's.  Then  he  said,  in  a  tense 
steadiness :  "He  blamed  me  for  not  writing  him,  at  col 
lege,  about  you.  I  promised  him  I  'd  write  here.  He 
let  you  come,  on  that  condition — that  I  'd  look  after 
you,  and  let  him  know  how  you  were  getting  on." 

Conroy  flamed  up :  "  You  mind  your  own  business. ' ' 

"That  's  my  business." 

"No,  it  is  n't!  It  is  n't  yours  and  it  is  n't  his!  He 
threw  me  off— without  a  cent — to  starve  if  I  liked— 
down  here.  WThat  do  1  care  about  him  ? ' ' 


198  DON-A-DREAMS 

' '  No,  he  did  n  't.  He  said  he  wanted  to  give  you  your 
chance— not  to  take  you  home  like  'a  whipped  cur'—" 

"Who  's  a  whipped  cur?"  he  shouted. 

Don  shouted  back  at  him :  ' '  He  said  he  did  n 't  want 
you  to  be  a  whipped  cur!  I 'told  him  those  fellows  at 
college  had  led  you  into  it — the  trouble.  You  said  so 
yourself.  Now,  here  you  are,  doing  the  same  thing 
again. ' ' 

"You  're  a  liar!" 

"Well,  I  'm  not  going  to  lie  to  him.  I  'm  not  going 
to  be  responsible  for  you  if  you  drink." 

"You  sneak!  It  's  the  money,  is  it?  You  want  to 
get  rid  of  me  to  save  the  miserable  dollar  a  week  you  've 
been  doling  out  to  me.  If  it  had  n 't  been  for  me,  you  'd 
never  have  had  it  to  lend." 

Don,  his  anger  exhausted,  felt  himself  oppressed  with 
a  great  weariness,  buffeted  in  this  ignoble  quarrel.  He 
put  his  hands  up  to  his  temples,  his  elbows  on  the  table, 
gone  dumb. 

Conroy  went  on,  crazily:  "You  need  n't  be  afraid. 
I  '11  pay  you  back  some  way.  If  I  don't,  you  can 
make  out  your  bill  and  collect  it  from  mother. ' ' 

Don  did  not  reply. 

"Who  said  I  was  drinking?  What  concern  is  it  of 
yours — or  his — if  I  am?  Why  does  n't  he  do  some 
thing  to  help  me  along,  if  he  's  so  blamed  anxious  about 
me  ?  If  you  'd  been  chucked  out,  without  a  cent,  in  a 
place  where  you  could  n 't  get  a  thing  to  do,  you  'd  want 
something  too,  to— to  keep  yourself  up." 

"You  're  not  without  a  cent.  I  '11  give  you  all  the 
money  you  want,  if  you  '11  promise  not  to  spend  it 
that  way." 


THE  IDEALIST  199 

Conroy  checked  his  fury,  to  cry,  contemptuously: 
"Where  '11  you  get  it?" 

' '  Oh,  I  '11  get  it.  .  .  All  he  wanted  was  to  give  you 
your  chance.  You  would  n't  have  gone  back  to  Coul- 
ton.  You  were  coming  to  New  York,  yourself.  Now 
that  he  let  you  come,  this  is  the  way  you  behave ! ' ' 

"Is  he  sending  you  money  for  me ? ' ' 

"I  '11  not  tell  you." 

"Why  did  n't  you  tell  me  before?  Why  did  you 
pretend  you  were  lending  it  to  me?" 

"I  did  n't.  I  told  you  it  was  as  much  yours  as 
mine." 

"He  is  sending  it." 

' '  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself.  When  every 
one  's  trying  to  help  you  to — to —  You  ought  to  be 
ashamed. ' ' 

Conroy  flung  out:  "I  don't  see  that  you  're  doing 
such  a  lot.  You  have  n't  earned  a  cent  yourself." 

"No,  but  I  've  tried  to." 

"Well,  have  n't  /?    Have  n't  /?" 

"You  're  not  trying  to— lately." 

' '  Ah ! ' '  Conroy  threw  out  his  hands  with  a  snarl  of 
despair.  "What  's  the  use?  I  'm  down  and  everyone 
kicks  me !  They  won 't  give  me  anything  to  do.  Why 
should  they  ?  I  don 't  know  how  to  do  anything.  I  've 
made  a  mess  of  my  life. ' '  He  choked  up,  boyishly. 

"You  're  not  any  worse  off  than  I  am,"  Don  said, 
"and  I  have  n't  given  up.  Not  by  a  good  deal!  I  '11 
stick  to  it  if  it  comes  to  selling  lead  pencils  on  the 
street  corner.  . . .  Besides,  you  can  go  home  at  Christ 
mas,  to  your  father's  office,  if  you  wish  to.  You  have 


200  DON-A-DREAMS 

him  behind  you,  now,  if  you  '11  only  show  him  that 
you—  Heavens ! ' '  He  looked  out  at  his  own  future 
that  was  yet  to  be  made  out  of  nothing,  with  his  own 
hands.  ' '  Tf  I  only  had  your  chance ! ' ' 

They  were  silent.  Conroy  smoked  with  a  vehemence 
that  subsided  to  a  more  thoughtful  puffing  of  his  pipe 
as  he  calmed  down  to  reason.  Don  gloomed  over  the 
squares  and  circles  which  he  was  drawing  on  his  blotter 
in  a  bitter  idleness  of  mind.  He  recalled  his  father's 
phrase  "the  charity  of  relatives";  Conroy  had  brought 
the  meaning  of  it  home  to  him.  Heretofore,  he  had 
had  no  thought  of  the  money;  he  had  been  working  to 
make  himself  a  place  in  the  world  that  would  be  fit  to 
ask  her  to  share  with  him;  and  he  had  accepted  these 
"loans"  from  his  aunt  and  his  uncle  as  he  would  have 
accepted  their  good  wishes.  Now  he  faced  the  need  of 
paying  them  back,  of  freeing  himself  from  Conroy 's 
reproach,  of  earning,  immediately,  enough  to  make  him 
self  independent. 

Conroy  interrupted,  in  contrition:  "Say,  Don,  don't 
write  to  him  that  I  've  been—  I  '11  start  out  to-morrow 
morning,  and  find  something  if— if  I  have  to  beg 
for  it." 

Don  did  not  reply.  He  had  himself  arrived  at  the 
same  resolve. 


IV 

THE  first  heat  of  the  New  York  summer  had  begun  to 
oppress  the  dry  streets  with  an  intolerable  glare  of 


THE  IDEALIST  201 

sun  all  day  and  a  stifling  sluggishness  of  exhausted  air 
all  night ;  and  Don  dragged  himself  from  office  to  office 
— in  his  heavy  clothing,  in  his  sun-greened  felt  hat,  in 
his  burning  winter  shoes— pale  and  spiritless.  Every 
one  in  the  city  seemed  to  be  short-tempered ;  the  motor- 
men  of  the  cable  cars,  in  their  hot  uniforms,  stamped 
on  the  ringers  of  their  gongs;  the  drivers  lashed 
their  horses  with  whips  that  cracked  angrily  in  the 
fierce  light;  the  crowds  on  the  sidewalks  pushed  and 
fretted  under  the  scant  shade  of  shop-front  awnings. 
It  was  the  time  of  year  when  the  police  records  of 
spring  suicides  begin  to  fall  off,  and  the  tenement  house 
murders  take  their  places  on  the  sergeants'  "blotters." 

Don  went,  jostled  and  elbowed,  up  Broadway  to  Mad 
ison  Square,  drawn  by  the  sight  of  green  leaves  ahead  of 
him.  The  working  world  no  longer  contented  itself 
with  merely  ignoring  him ;  it  had  turned  on  him  irrita 
bly  and  shouldered  him  out  of  its  way  into  the  gutter, 
lie  stopped  at  a  print-shop  window  attracted  by  a  snow 
scene  that  reminded  him  of  Canada — a  picture  of  a 
dejected  wolf  on  a  hill-top  looking  down,  over  the 
drifts,  on  a  little  village  with  lighted  windows,  the 
smoke  of  kitchen  chimneys  rising  straight  and  still  in 
the  frozen  air.  And  Don  understood  the  sneaking 
droop  of  that  wolf's  lean  shoulders,  and  sympathized 
with  it. 

He  crossed  to  the  benches  under  the  trees,  to  sit 
among  the  flotsam  of  the  streets,  among  the  idlers  and 
vagabonds  who  gather  into  these  stagnant  pools  of 
Broadway  traffic.  He  turned  his  back  on  the  activities 
of  the  pavement  and  the  sight  of  all  those  fortunate 


202  DON-A-DREAMS 

beings  who  had  cause  to  be  impatient  and  in  haste.  He 
looked  at  the  grass  and  the  leaves,  and  at  the  fountain 
that  danced  and  sparkled  mechanically  in  its  pool  of 
water  lilies,  like  something  imprisoned  there  and 
trained.  He  remembered  his  ravine  in  Coulton  and  the 
little  water-fall  that  chuckled  over  its  stones. 

He  did  not  notice  a  man  who  passed  and  repassed  him 
with  keen  glances,  studying  his  clothes,  his  shoes,  his 
general  air  of  limp  discouragement.  But  he  awoke 
with  a  start  when  this  stranger  sat  down  on  the  bench 
beside  him  so  heavily  that  the  whole  seat  jarred;  and 
when  the  man  opened  his  newspaper  and  turned  to  the 
page  of  "want  ads,"  Don  read  the  list  out  of  the  end 
of  his  eye,  with  the  involuntary  interest  of  the  unem 
ployed.  "Never  seem  to  get  any  less,"  the  man  said 
good-naturedly. 

Don  looked  away,  ashamed  of  having  betrayed  him 
self. 

"I  s'pose  they  're  like  that  ev'ry  day  in  the  year," 
he  went  on.  And  when  Don  did  not  speak,  he  added : 
"I  know  it  's  over  a  year  since  /  looked  at  'em — an' 
there  was  just  as  many  then."  He  glanced  around  at 
Don  with  a  cheerful  impudence,  and  Don  nodded.  He 
had  colorless  eyes  under  heavy  eyebrows;  his  cheek  and 
chin  were  blue-black  with  close  shaving.  "Yes,"  he 
said,  dropping  his  paper  to  his  knee,  ' '  over  a  year  ago ! 
I  was  on  the  rocks,  fer  fair— sittin'  down  in  Union 
Square  with  no  more  backbone  than  a  string  o'  fish— 
readin'  those  ads  without  expectin'  to  find  any  thin'  fer 
me  either."  He  laughed.  "I  might  've  been  readin' 
them  yet— fer  all  the  good  it  'd  'a'  done  me.  That  's 


THE  IDEALIST  203 

the  hell  of  it  in  this  town.  Yuh  're  on  the  other  side  o ' 
the  fence,  lookin'  at  the  apples.  Yuh  can  look  at  'em 
till  yer  eyes  drop  out,  if  yuh  don't  get  a  lift  over  the 
pickets. ' ' 

Don  turned  again.  The  man  was  smiling  thoughtfully 
at  the  fountain.  "An  oF  frien'  o'  mine  came  along 
an'  says:  'What  're  yuh  doin',  Jim?'  'Doin'?'  I  says. 
'  Doin '  nothin ' !  Carryin '  the  banner !  Poun  'in '  the 
sidewalks ! '  He  says  '  Hell ! ' — he  says — '  Why  don 't  yuh 
get  to  work?'  'Why?' I  says.  'Why  don't  I?  'Cause 
I  can't.  That  's  the  why!  'Cause  there  don't  seem  to 
be  any  work  to  get?'  'Been  to  see  oF  Whitten?'  he 
asks  me.  '  Whitten  ? '  I  says.  '  No !  Who  's  Whitten  ? '  He 
does  n't  say  a  word.  He  jus'  crooks  his  finger  at  me. 
'  Come  along, '  he  says.  '  I  '11  put  yuh  wise. '  ' 

He  pushed  back  his  hat  impatiently.  "That  's  the 
hell  o'  this  town.  There  's  lots  o'  jobs  lookin'  fer 
young  fullahs  that  're  on  the  square.  The  trouble  is 
the  employers  don't  know  how  to  find  'em.  This  oF 
guy  's  a  sort  o'  religious  crank,  an'  whenever  he  can 
pick  up  a  young  fullah  that  's  out  o'  work  an'  goin'  to 
the  dogs,  he  puts  him  in  the  first  place  that  's  open.  A 
lot  o'  the  best  bus 'ness  houses  take  their  han's  from 
him.  Yuh  see  he  makes  in-quiries  an'  knows  his  men. 
It  ain't  charity  either.  He  makes  the  office  pay  fer 
itself  by  chargin'  five  dollars.  But  hell,  what  's  five 
dollars  when  yuh  get  a  good  thing  at  fifteen  a— 

Don  broke  in,  clutching  at  the  opportunity,  in  a 
trembling  haste:  "Do  you  think—  I  'm— I  'm  out  of 
work.  I  'd  pay  him  anything.  I—" 

The  man  turned  with  a  slow  grin  that  brought  the 


204  DON-A-DKEAMS 

blood  to  Don's  face.  "Well,  I  'm  d d!  How  did 

I  come  to  tell  y'  about  it!  Well,  I  'm  d d!"  He 

showed  tobacco-stained  teeth  in  a  wrinkled  smile.  "I 
tell  yuh  what  I  '11  do:  I  '11  take  y'  over  to  his  joint 
an 1  give  y '  a  knock-down  to  him,  eh  ? " 

Don's  shame  passed  in  a  gratitude  that  swelled  in 
his  throat  speechlessly.  He  heard  the  man  say  "over 
on  Twelf  street,  near  Sixt'  Avenuh."  They  rose  to 
gether. 

The  stranger  was  short  and  sturdy,  with  a  leg  that 
bowed  out  behind  him,  at  the  calf,  like  the  blade  of  a 
sickle;  and  he  walked  on  his  heels,  his  hands  in  his 
trousers'  pockets,  his  hat  slanted  down  on  his  puckered 
eyes.  He  talked  breezily.  Don  went  in  silence,  tall 
beside  him,  his  immature  shoulders  sloping  from  his 
thin  neck,  his  head  erect,  vacantly  smiling.  The  noises 
of  the  street  beat  around  him  unheard.  A  myriad  of 
woman-shoppers  rushed  back  and  forth  below  him.  His 
starved  hopes  were  gorging  themselves  in  a  blind  greed- 
'iness  that  saw  nothing  but  their  food. 

The  man  was  saying:  "Well,  it's  a  great  place,  ain't 
it?  Get  yer  start  here  an'  rise  to  any  thin '—any  thin'! 
Get  yer  start,  that  's  all!  It  's  worth  any  thin'  to  get 
yer  start.  It  's  a  reg'lar  gold  mine,  once  yuh  get  yer 
pick  into  it. ' '  He  looked  at  Don,  as  if  suspicious  of  his 
silence.  Don  appeared  to  be  wistfully  studying  the 
faces  of  the  women  as  they  passed.  "Girls  too,"  he 
laughed.  "Good-lookers  at  that!  Get  yer  money  an' 
take  yer  choice.  An'  they  dress  to  do  yuh  proud.  Get 
yer  start,  that  's  all.  .  .  Got  any  recommends? 
Eh?  Any  letters  from  yer  las'  job?" 


THE  IDEALIST  205 

Don  explained  that  he  had  just  left  college ;  that  the 
only  letter  he  had  was  from  the  Dean  of  the  University. 

' '  What ! ' '  He  tilted  his  hat  over  one  ear,  scratching 
his  temple,  humorously.  "A  college  education!  Well, 

I  'm  d d!  Won't  ol'  Whitten  warm  to  that!  An' 

a  Dean!  Say,  why  did  n't  yuh  get  pass-me-ons  from 
the  President  an'  Gov'ner  What's-his-name,  while  yuh 
were?  This  's  easier  'n  cashin'  a  check.  What  d'  yuh 
want?  How  'd  private  secret 'ry  to  a  Fift'  Avenuh 
coupon-cutter  do  yuh  ? ' ' 

Don  laughed  rather  uncertainly.  "I  'm  afraid 
there  's  not  much  chance  of  that  ? ' ' 

"Afraid?  Hell!  Afraid  nothin'!  I  wish  't  I  'd' 
had  yer  chance  the  day  Jim  walked  me  down  here. 
Where  the—  It  was  down  aroun'  here  somewheres." 
He  looked  up  a  side  street. ' '  Well,  if  he  's  moved,  we  can 
tree  him  in  the  d'rect'ry.  It  must  be  along  further." 

Don  winked  rapidly  at  the  faltering  of  his  hope.  The 
clatter  of  an  elevated  train  overhead  broke  in  upon  him 
with  a  return  of  the  old  jostled  discouragement  of  these 
heedless  streets.  He  read  the  signboards  as  he  walked, 
vainly  trying  to  occupy  his  mind  in  the  suspense. 

The  man  said:  "Here  y'  are.     I  thought  the  ol' 

guy—" 

Don  tripped  on  the  threshold  as  he  followed  in,  weak 
in  the  knees.  A  red-haired  girl,  at  a  desk,  nodded  in 
reply  to  the  man's  "Mr.  Whitten  in  ?  " — looking  not  at 
him  but  at  Don.  Her  hard  grey  eye  pursued  him  with 
an  indifferent  curiosity  as  he  passed  through  to  the 
inner  office. 

Mr.  Whitteu  rose,  peering  short-sightedly,  and  Don, 


206  DON-A-DREAMS 

as  he  stood  behind  his  companion's  glib  explanations, 
stared  at  something  in  the  face  which  he  thought  he  had 
seen  before.  The  grey  beard  and  moustache  were  un 
familiar  ;  the  hair  was  wrong,  but  the  forehead  and  the 
nose,  the  eyebrows — 

"Ah?"  Mr.  Whittensaid.  "Yes.  .  .  I  recall  you, 
Mr.— Mr.—  " 

It  was  the  voice — 

"Dixon." 

"Exactly!    I  recall  you  distinctly." 

It  was  the  voice  of  Mr.  Vandever !— Vandever,  no 
longer  clean-shaven,  Vandever  without  his  gold-rimmed 
glasses  and  his  beamingly  benign  regard — but  undoubt 
edly  the  benevolent  Vandever.  And  Don,  for  the  first 
time,  looked  at  an  old  man  infamous. 

It  held  him  like  a  horror.  It  revolted  while  it  fasci 
nated  him.  The  squinting  eyes,  weak  without  their 
glasses,  were  hideously  hypocritical.  The  false  smile, 
the  pretence  of  kindliness,  the  affected  warmth  of  man 
ner  were  a  disgusting  villainy  so  incredible  to  him  that 
he  could  not  take  his  eyes  from  them.  He  did  not  hear 
what  "Dixon"  was  saying.  He  stood  gaping  until 
Vandever  held  out  a  hand  to  him,  and  then  the 
approach  of  contact  with  this  dishonored  old  rogue 
woke  him  to  loathing  and  shame.  He  shook  his  head, 
red  and  stammering,  refusing  the  hand-clasp ;  he  looked 
at  "Dixon"  appealingly  and  saw  in  the  man's  face 
that  he,  too,  was  ai  partner  in  the  abominable  business ; 
then  he  turned  and  hurried  from  the  office  with  the 
echo  of  Dixon's  "What  the  hell!"  following  him  like 
the  vile  odor  of  this  degradation  from  which  he  fled 


THE  IDEALIST  207 

holding  his  breath  until  he  could  reach  the  clean  air  of 
the  street. 

He  ran  against  a  young  man  who  appeared  to  be  hesi 
tating  at  the  doorway.  He  began:  "Don't — go  in. 
They  're"-  But  the  suspicion  that  this  might  be 
another  "Dixon"  stopped  his  voice;  and  with  a  de 
spairing  disgust  of  mankind,  he  pulled  his  hat  down  on 
his  eyebrows  and  strode  off  tragically. 

The  young  man  followed  and  caught  up   to  him. 
"What?  What  did  you  say?" 
"They  're — thieves — fakirs." 
"Oh.     .     .     Thanks.    What  's  the  matter?" 
Don,  safe  at  a  distance  from  the  office,  leaned  against 
a  lamp-post,   and  between  labored  breaths  explained 
what  had  happened.    The  other  smiled  easily.    "I  saw 
you    going    in    with   that    'tout'.      I    was    wondering 
whether  he  was  on  the  level,  now.    The  street  's  full  of 
these  con.  agents.    Don't  ever  pay  them  in  advance.    If 
they  're  straight,  they  '11  only  ask  a  rake-off  from  your 
first  month's  wages." 

"An  old  man  too— like  that!"  Don  was  trembling 
like  a  girl  who  has  been  insulted  on  the  streets;  and 
the  other  watched  him,  a  little  amused,  a  little  sorry 
for  him. 

"You  're  new  here?" 

Don  nodded,  his  mind  set  on  the  memory  of  Vande- 
ver's  face. 

"You  '11  get  used  to  that  sort  of  thing.  There  's  a 
lot  of  it.  .  .  Looking  for  work?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  mechanically,  staring  at  the 
gutter,  miserable,  in  a  world  of  roguery. 


208  DON-A-DREAMS 

"What  have  you  found?" 

"Nothing!    I  can't.    I  can't  find  anything." 

It  was  the  voice  of  abject  hopelessness.  His  com 
panion  studied  him,  debating  something  with  himself. 
He  coughed,  "Well,"  he  said,  "I  don't  know  where 
you  '11  get  anything  regular,  but  there  are  a  lot  of  little 
things  to  do,  to  earn  a  dollar  of  two,  if  you  want  to." 

"Where?" 

He  smiled  at  Don's  amazement.  "Why,  all  over 
town.  You  could  try  boosting  down  on  the  Bowery" — 

"Boosting?" 

"Yes." 

"What  's  that?" 

"Well."  He  coughed  again.  "I  '11  show  you— if  you 
care  to  try  it.  It  's  fifty  cents  for  an  afternoon — a  dol 
lar  a  day  if  you  work  nights  too." 

Don  clenched  his  hands.  "I  '11  do  anything. ' ' 

He  suppressed  a  smile  for  this  boyish  tone  of  heroic 
desperation.  "Have  you  had  your  luncheon?" 

"No.    I-" 

"You  'd  better  come  and  have  it." 


HE  had  a  low  voice  and  a  good  manner,  an  ingratiating 
gentleness,  an  attractive  quiet  address;  and  to  Don  he 
seemed  prosperously  well-clothed,  though  a  keener  eye 
might  have  seen  that  his  blue  serge  was  worn  shiny  on 
the  seams,  that  his  straw  hat  was  a  lemon-yellow  from 


THE  IDEALIST  209 

frequent  cleanings  with  acid  and  sulphur,  that  his 
enameled-leather  shoes  were  shabby  with  a  network  of 
small  cracks.  His  features  were  almost  ascetically  lean 
and  bony,  and  he  had  the  mouth  of  a  public  speaker 
that  smiled  with  a  slow  ease  very  pleasant  to  see.  After 
a  silence,  he  always  cleared  his  throat,  with  a  deliberate 
cough,  before  he  spoke.  Altogether,  he  reminded  Don 
of  a  young  curate  whom  he  had  known  in  his  Sunday- 
school  days  in  Coulton;  and  unconsciously  Don  was 
drawn  to  him  by  this  memory  of  his  prototype,  trusted 
him,  and  was  ready  to  confide  in  him. 

They  went  to  a  cheap  Hungarian  cafe  where  Don 
understood  neither  the  names  of  the  dishes  nor  the 
ingredients  of  them;  but  in  a  revulsion  of  emotion,  tak 
ing  everything— including  his  food— on  trust*  he  was 
moved  to  tell  this  chance  acquaintance  more  of  himself 
and  his  circumstances  than  he  could  have  told  anyone 
but  an  intimate  friend ;  and  it  was  always,  afterwards, 
a  marvel  to  him  that  he  had  done  so,  for  the  clerical 
stranger,  after  introducing  himself  as  ' '  Walter  Tower, ' ' 
merely  listened  and  smiled  and  nodded,  with  the  man 
ner  of  an  elder  who  understood,  but  with  no  return  of 
confidences  in  kind.  Beyond  this  sympathetic  atten 
tion,  he  contented  himself  with  recalling  Don  to  his 
neglected  food.  "Yes?"  he  would  say,  encouragingly. 
' '  These  Hungarians  do  not  serve  butter.  We  can  order 
some,  if  you  like,  but  it  '11  be  unsalted. "  Or  "  Try  this 
dessert.  It  tastes  like  Purim  cake.  Have  you  ever 
done  any  stage  work?"  And  when  they  had  paid  the 
beaming  foreigner  in  shirt  sleeves— behind  a  counter 

full  of  bread  and  pies  and  boxes  of  cheap  cigars— 

u 


210  DON-A-DREAMS 

Tower  held  the  door  open  and  passed  Don  out  with  the 
same  protective  smile,  somewhat  amused  but  always 
sympathetic. 

They  took  the  elevated  railroad  around  the  Battery 
to  Chatham  Square. 

It  was,  for  Don,  a  descent  into  the  city's  unknown 
lower  regions,  but  Tower  seemed  as  much  at  home  and 
as  incuriously  observant  of  familiar  surroundings  as  he 
had  been  when  sauntering  along  the  line  of  employment 
agencies  on  Sixth  Avenue..  "This  is  the  Bowery,"  he 
said,  as  they  came  down  the  station  steps.  "The 
'Rogues'  Highway.'  "  He  led  silently  past  the  "beer 
gardens,"  the  "musees, "  the  "amusement  parlors" 
and  all  the  sour  drinking  resorts  and  tinselled  "fake 
shows  "»of  the  street,  apparently  unconscious  of  the 
vicious  and  miserable  faces  that  he  met,  of  the  stagger 
ing  drunkenness  of  ragged  men  and  the  pathetic  finery 
of  painted  women.  "This  is  'Suicides'  Hall,'  "  he 
explained  mildly,  as  they  passed  a  saloon.  "About 
three  girls  a  month,  on  the  average,  drink  carbolic  acid 
there.  Don't  stare,"  he  added.  "And  don't  answer 
if  you  're  spoken  to."  Don  proceeded,  silent  with  the 
oppression  of  spirits  which  seemed  to  exhale  in  the 
stale  air  of  the  street,  in  the  paleness  of  faces  that  were 
marked  by  the  summer  heat  with  a  drawn  exhaustion 
instead  of  a  healthy  tan,  in  the  hoarse  cries  of  the 
"barkers"  at  the  doors,  and  in  the  smell  of  spotted 
fruit  that  came  from  the  push-carts  of  peddlers  at  the 
curb  and  from  the  watermelon  rinds  in  the  gutters. 

They  stopped  before  the  "Palace  of  Illusions:  The 
original  Bowery  Musee,"  and  Tower  said  "Wait  here 


THE  IDEALIST  211 

a  minute."  He  nodded  to  the  "barker"  in  the 
entrance,  passed  the  inner  ticket  office  and  disappeared. 
Don  studied  the  yellowed  photographs  of  a  fat  woman, 
an  acrobat  in  tights,  a  girl  in  dancing  skirts  posed  on  a 
rustic  fence  with  her  back  to  the  seashore,  a  pugilist 
menacing  a  punching  bag— until  Tower  came  out  again 
with  a  man  of  Dixon's  type,  who  looked  Don  over— his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  a  cigar  in  his  mouth— and  said: 
"A'  right.  We  're  goin'  to  start  the  grind  in  about 
ten  minutes.  Got  a  dime?  A'  right."  He  turned  to 
Tower.  "We  're  makin'  three  pushes  to  a  take.  Yuh 
don't  want  to  do  any  spielin',  do  you?  The  man  we 
got  's  a  heel." 

"No,"  Tower  said.  "I  'm  out  of  practice.  I  'd 
sooner  boost. ' ' 

"A'  right,  'bo.  String  'em  up.  The  other  boys  '11  be 
along  in  a  shake. ' ' 

He  went  in.  Tower  put  his  hand  on  Don's  shoulder 
and  started  him  up  the  street  again.  "We  have  noth 
ing  to  do,"  he  explained,  "but  to  walk  up  to  that  door 
when  the  man  you  saw  there  begins  to  call  out  that  the 
show  is  'on.'  We  wait  inside,  where  they  have  the  free 
performance,  until  a  crowd  has  gathered;  then,  when 
the  'spieler'  (they  call  him)  says  'Right  this  way,'  we 
push  over  to  the  box  office,  pay  ten  cents  and  pass  in. 
He  '11  give  you  back  your  money  inside.  The  idea  is  to 
start  the  crowd  going  in." 

To  a  youth  of  another  temperament,  it  might  have 
been  either  an  amusing  adventure  or  a  shocking  fall 
into  a  lower  world;  but  Don  had  not  the  self -detach 
ment  which  could  either  enjoy  his  surroundings  as 


212  DON-A-DREAMS 

apart  from  himself  or  pity  himself  as  above  his  sur 
roundings;  and  he  was  so  accustomed  to  having  events 
leap  upon  him  unforeseen  that  he  accepted  this  last 
bewildering  turn  of  fortune  in  his  usual  dazed  absorp 
tion  of  new  sights.  It  was  no  more  abrupt  and  strange 
to  him  than  his  meetings  with  Margaret  or  his  partings 
from  her,  his  arrival  at  college  or  his  leaving  it,  his 
varying  relations  with  Conroy,  with  his  father,  with 
the  whole  world,  in  fact— this  world  of  which  he  never 
seemed  able  to  discern  the  motives  or  foresee  the  acts. 
Always,  as  soon  as  he  had  planned  a  future  to  the  last 
detail  of  desire,  a  turn  of  the  road  faced  him  with  the 
unexpected,  and  he  stood  lost. 

At  the  barker's  hoarse  cry  of  "All  free,  gents.  All 
free.  Step  right  inside,"  Tower  and  he,  sauntering 
past  the  door,  appeared  to  stop  and  hesitate.  ' '  It  costs 
yuh  nothin',  now.  It  's  free  gratis,  free — all  free — an' 
the  fines'  show  on  the  Bowery.  Step  right  inside." 
Tower  replied  to  this  invitation,  "jollying"  the  barker, 
and  two  or  three  of  the  passers-by  stood  to  smile  and 
listen.  They  followed  Tower  in,  for  he  looked  like  a 
visitor  to  town  "doing  the  Bowery,"  and  his  smiling 
curiosity  was  infectious.  Within,  on  a  raised  "bally 
hoo"  platform,  there  was  a  "fire-eater"  in  a  Mephisto 
phelean  costume,  a  long-haired  "Hindoo"  who  danced 
bare-footed  on  broken  glass,  and  a  perspiring  juggler  in 
faded  blue  tights;  and  Tower,  watching  them  go 
through  their  "stunts,"  played  his  part  of  inquisitive 
idler  with  the  ease  of  an  actor,  making  humorous 
remarks  to  Don  in  loud  asides  that  amused  his  neighbors 
in  the  crowd,  and  challenging  the  "spieler"  with  imper- 


THE  IDEALIST  213 

tinent  questions  when  that  eloquent  official  came  out  on 
the  platform  to  eulogize  the  acts  that  were  to  be  "wit 
nessed  on  the  inside  f er  a  dime,  ten  cents. ' '  As  soon  as 
the  spieler  concluded  his  harangue  with  "Step  this  way 
to  the  box  office, ' '  Tower  said  to  Don : ' '  Well,  it  's  only  a 
dime.  Come  on.  Let  's  have  some  fun  with  them ; ' '  and 
as  he  made  his  way  to  the  wicket— taking  care  to  press 
forward  those  in  front  of  him  with  a  persuasive  shoulder 
— he  started  a  current  towards  the  entrance  and  drew 
behind  him  a  following  of  smiling  sight-seers  who 
wished  to  hear  him  "have  some  fun"  with  the  perform 
ance.  Once  inside  the  main  hall,  with  its  "side-show" 
array  of  booths  and  small  stages,  Don  and  he  disap 
peared  behind  the  curtains  of  the  exit,  where  the  mana 
ger  returned  them  their  dimes  and  let  them  out  on  the 
street  again  for  the  next  "push." 

All  this  occurred  with  a  bewildering  rapidity  that 
made  it  rather  difficult  for  Don  to  understand ;  he  was 
puzzled  by  Tower's  part  in  it;  he  did  not  think  about 
his  own.  "Do  you  do  this  every  day?"  he  asked. 

"No,"  Tower  said,  turning  him  up  the  street  again. 
"I  have  n't  done  it  since  I  first  came  to  town — six 
years  ago." 

' '  You  're  doing  it  to  show  me  how  ? ' ' 

"Principally.    Yes." 

Don  flushed  with  gratitude.    "Thanks." 

"Well,"  Tower  said,  "it  is  n't  a  highly  respectable 
job,  I  suppose,  but  I  could  n't  think  of  anything  else— 
on  the  spur  of  the  moment— anything  that  you  can  do. 
And  the  show  is  worth  ten  cents.  It  is  n  't  as  if  you  were 
doing  it  for  one  of  those  fake  '  fronts '  down  the  street. ' ' 


214  DON-A-DREAMS 

"It  's— it  's  mighty  good  of  you,"  Don  stammered, 
"taking  your  time  and — " 

"Not  at  all.    I  've  nothing  else  to  do  just  now." 

"What  do  you  do— generally." 

"When  I  have  an  engagement,  I  act." 

"On  the  stage?" 

Tower  smiled.  "Up — at  the  back  of  the  stage,  princi 
pally.  Yes.  .  .  How  do  you  like  'boosting'?" 

"I  don't  know  yet." 

"Well" — Tower  cleared  his  throat— "it  can't  do  you 
any  hurt.  This  sort  of  thing— seeing  the  Bowery- 
puts  you  wise  to  a  lot  of  life.  It  gives  you  the  under 
side  of  a  good  deal.  I  'd  stick  at  it  for  a  while  if  I 
were  you.  When  the  theatres  open,  you  can  get  some 
'sup ing.'  ' 

"What  's  that?" 

"I  '11  show  you,  some  day." 

The  barker  greeted  them  afresh:  "All  free,  gents. 
All  free  on  the  inside.  Step  right  in.  It  costs  you  noth- 
in'.  All  free." 

Tower  stopped.  "Is  it  a  free  lunch  or  a  public 
library?" 

The  barker  waved  his  hand  genially.  "Neither,  my 
Christian  friend.  Neither  ner  both.  If  yuh  're  an 
eats- 'em-alive,  yuh  '11  find  yer  cage  down  the  street. 
This  is  the  on'y  original  'Palace  of  Illusions,'  the  fam 
ous  Bowery  musee.  Step  right  inside,  an'  keep  yer 
mouth  shut  an'  yer  eyes  open.  Free  performance, 
gents. ' ' 

' '  Come  on, ' '  Tower  said.  ' '  Let  's  see  what  they  give 
for  nothing. ' ' 


THE  IDEALIST  215 

It  was  not,  as  Tower  had  said,  a  "highly  respectable 
job,"  but  it  was  the  first  opportunity  that  Don  had  had 
to  do  any  thing  for  himself,  and  he  went  through  it 
with  the  nervous  seriousness  of  a  resolve  to  prove  him 
self  capable.  He  felt  that  he  was  being  given  a  trial  at 
last;  that  he  owed  it  to  Tower  to  flinch  at  nothing; 
that  he  must  prove  himself  to  himself,  to  the  world, 
and  to  the  man  who  had  helped  him.  He  crushed 
down  his  conscientious  scruples  against  playing  the 
hypocrite  and  counterfeiting  a  fresh  interest  in  each 
of  the  free  performances;  and  he  tried  to  pay  his 
money  into  the  ticket  office  with  a  properly  alluring 
eagerness.  After  all,  the  show  was  worth  ten  cents,  and 
he  was  only  leading  the  public  on  to  its  own  amuse 
ment. 

When  the  last  "take"  was  netted,  at  half -past  five, 
he  took  his  fifty  cents  from  the  manager  as  the  first 
wages  of  his  proven  usefulness,  and  walked  out,  with 
Tower,  full  of  a  splendid  confidence  in  himself.  He  had 
"found  his  feet"  at  last,  he  thought. 

He  invited  Tower  to  have  dinner  with  Conroy  and 
Pittsey  in  their  rooms,  explaining  the  circumstances  of 
their  house-keeping.  And  Tower  said:  "Pittsey? 
What  is  his  Christian  name?" 

"Bert.    Herbert." 

"Oh!  .  .  .  Don't  tell  him  you  met  me.  I  '11 
call  some  evening  and  surprise  him." 

' '  Really !    You  know  him  ?    He  's  been  here  before. ' ' 

"Yes.    How  's  he  getting  on?" 

Don  related  his  friend's  successes  with  pride. 
"Where  did  you  meet  him?" 


216  DON-A-DREAMS 

' '  I  used  to  know  him  in  Canada. ' ' 

"What!"  He  stopped  on  a  crowded  corner.  "Are 
you  a  Canadian,  too?" 

Tower  took  him  by  the  arm,  amusedly,  and  guided 
him  across  the  street.  "I  was  born  so.  There  are  sev 
eral  thousands  of  us  here— in  New  York— you  know." 

"Did  you  know  /  was?" 

"I  supposed  so,  from  your  University  pin." 

Don  put  his  hand  up  to  it,  flushing  excitedly.  ' '  Now 
I  understand  why—.  .  .  I— I  could  n't  make  out 
why  you  did  it.  You  've  been  .  .  .  mighty  decent 
to-" 

Tower  tried  to  make  light  of  this  awkward  gratitude, 
turning  it  off  jokingly.  ' '  Don 't  mention  it— not  to  your 
friend  Pittsey,  at  any  rate.  This  is  your  station  here. 
I  'm  going  across  town."  He  held  out  his  hand.  "Will 
you  He  boosting  to-morrow  ? ' ' 

Don  closed  on  his  fingers  with  an  eager  warmth,  as 
if  to  detain  him  until  the  surprise  of  the  new  situation 
could  wear  off  and  leave  their  parting  less  abrupt. 
' '  Won 't  I  though !  Will  y  ou  ? " 

' '  Well,  I  '11  be  down  at  one  o  'clock  to  see  you  started. 
Till  to-morrow,  then."  He  slipped  from  Don's  grasp. 
"Good-bye." 

As  he  turned  the  corner,  he  nodded  and  waved  his 
hand  to  Don,  who  stood  beaming  at  the  foot  of  the  sta 
tion  steps,  obstructing  the  passage.  The  hot  and  impa 
tient  men  and  women  who  bumped  against  him  and 
shouldered  him  out  of  their  way,  did  not  understand 
that  he  was  no  longer  a  useless  impediment  to  the  traffic 
of  the  streets,  that  he  was  a  tried  and  accepted  earner 
of  wages,  and  one  of  themselves.  He  forgave  them 


THE  IDEALIST  217 

with  an  abstracted  smile  that  carried  him  into  a  City 
Hall  train  instead  of  the  one  which  he  should  have 
taken  to  the  Battery. 

HE  arrived  at  his  rooms  for  supper,  late  but  jubilant, 
with  a  watermelon  which  he  had  bought  to  celebrate 
his  success ;  and  he  was  met  at  the  door  of  the  dining- 
room  by  an  equally  jubilant  announcement  from  Con- 
roy  that  he,  too,  had  found  work— in  the  shipping 
department  of  a  wholesale  grocery.  "Answering  fake 
advertisements— that  's  not  the  way !  I  just  went  from 
one  door  to  another,  all  along  the  street,  asking  for 
something  to  do.  They  gave  me  this  job  when  they 
found  out  I  knew  how  to  put  addresses  on  boxes  and 
barrels,  with  a  brush— you  know— the  way  they  print 
them."  He  had  learned  that  art  in  his  father's  ware 
house.  "What  did  you  get,  Don?" 

"I  '11  tell  you— some  day.    It  's  a  secret." 

"What  is  it?" 

"Never  mind,"  he  laughed.  "I  met  some  .one.  You  '11 
see."  He  plumped  his  watermelon  on  the  table. 
"Look'at  that!" 

Pittsey  struck  an  attitude.  ' '  The  first  fruits  of  hon 
est  labor!  Gee!  Let  us  gorge." 

They  gorged.  With  the  appetites  of  youth  and  the 
sauce  of  their  new  enthusiasm,  they  ate  bacon  and  fried 
eggs  for  a  summer  dinner,  laughing  and  talking  as  if 
they  were  on  a  picnic,  making  uncouth  gurgles  as  they 
devoured  the  watermelon,  and  shooting  the  seeds  out  the 
window,  by  squeezing  them  between  thumb  and  fore 
finger,  in  a  hilarious  trial  of  skill. 

"And  this,"  Pittsey  said,  as  he  aimed  with  another 


218  DON-A-DREAMS 

seed,  "this  is  poverty  in  New  York  City!  Why,  off 
the  Bowery  the  Italians  eat  watermelon  seeds  for  des 
sert.  Watch  me  t'rowin'  good  grub  out  the  window. 
Ping!" 

Don  bit  a  seed  to  taste  it.    "Poor  beggars,"  he  said. 

"Poor  nothing!"  Pittsey  cried.  "I  think  they  have 
the  best  of  the  bargain.  There  are  more  seeds  than 
anything  else  in  a  watermelon,  anyway. ' ' 


VI 


THE  Bowery  is  not  only  a  "Rogues'  Highway" ;  it  is,  to 
the  tenements  of  the  East  Side,  what  the  theater  district 
of  Broadway  is  to  the  rest  of  the  city ;  and  Don 's  ' '  Mu- 
see"  was  a  crude  but  honest  house  of  amusement  for 
the  poor  and  for  the  slumming  parties  that  came  to 
see  the  poor  amused.  It  was  not  one  of  those  "fake 
fronts"— as  Tower  had  called  them— which  allure  the 
morbidly  curious  with  promises  of  an  indecent  exhi 
bition  and  turn  them  out  a  side  door,  disappointed. 
Nevertheless,  it  lived  in  the  heart  of  a  pollution  which 
slowly— as  Don  slowly  realized  it— repelled  and  sad 
dened  while  it  puzzled  him.  Here  was  life  reduced  to 
its  lowest  terms  of  bestiality:  vice  without  its  disguis 
ing  glitter,  suffering  that  had  no  illusion  to  make  it 
noble,  and  crime  miserable  in  its  own  hell.  Where  did 
this  inferno  find  its  place  in  the  scientific  universe  that 


THE  IDEALIST  219 

gave  to  crime  the  joy  of  its  plunder  as  it  gave  the  wild 
beast  the  joy  of  its  prey?  And  if  Man  were  merely 
a  higher  animal,  why  were  these  animals  not  brutally 
happy  in  their  dens? 

It  was  an  experience  of  life  for  which  Don's  books 
had  not  prepared  him.  It  was  a  lesson  from  life  itself 
and  not  the  colorless  argument  of  a  theory  of  life.  And 
confused  by  the  thousand  changing  incidents  that 
repeated  the  question  incessantly  around  him,  touched 
in  his  sympathies  and  revolted  in  his  ideals,  he  went 
about  his  "boosting"  as  if  bewildered  by  the  noises  of 
the  street,  staring  and  distracted. 

Tower  did  not  come  on  that  second  afternoon  to  see 
him  ' '  started, ' '  and  he  worked  alone,  without  any  smil 
ing  companionship  to  disguise  from  him  the  hypocrisy 
of  his  employment.  He  finished,  that  day,  with  a  shame 
of  it  all  which  prevented  him  from  telling  his  room 
mates  what  he  had  been  doing ;  but  he  returned  to  it,  on 
the  morrow,  in  the  loyal  expectation  of  seeing  Tower; 
and  he  continued  secretly  at  his  post,  day  after  day, 
because  he  could  not  find  any  other  work  to  do  and 
because  he  felt  himself  bound  in  gratitude  to  Tower  to 
avail  himself  of  the  opportunity  which  he  owed  to  his 
fellow-countryman.  The  sights  which  he  saw,  did,  as 
Tower  had  promised,  put  him  "wise  to  a  lot  of  life"; 
but  they  had  the  first  effect  of  driving  him  in  on  him 
self  as  they  would  turn  a  nun  to  her  prayers.  The  hot 
and  unclean  street  reminded  him— by  contrast — of 
the  fir  trees  and  the  underbrush  and  the  rustling  cool 
ness  of  his  woods ;  and  he  took  refuge  in  the  memory  of 
these.  The  women  of  the  pavements,  whom  he  saw 


220  DON-A-DREAMS 

drinking  in  the  "Beer  gardens"  or  loitering  in  the  side 
doors  of  saloons,  gave  him  back  that  dear  ideal  of  girl 
ish  innocence  who  had  sat  beside  him  under  a  green 
bower  of  branches  in  a  childish  idyll— and  met  him 
like  a  vision  in  the  snows  of  an  enchanted  Sunday 
morning— and  looked  across  a  lovers'  valley  at  the  sun 
set  with  him,  holding  hands,  under  a  quiet  pine.  And 
when  he  received  a  letter  from  her,  written  in  Paris,  he 
went  to  Madison  Square  to  read  it  among  those  exiled 
trees  that  were  as  dusty  as  himself  and  as  lonely  for  the 
country  and  the  call  of  birds. 

She  wrote,  in  voluble  good  spirits,  of  an  ocean  voy 
age  that  had  apparently  been  to  her  a  ten  days'  "excur 
sion" — an  excursion  on  which  she  had  not  missed  a 
single  meal,  on  which  all  her  fellow-picnickers  had 
been  "lovely,"  on  which  she  had  had  "such  a  good 
time."  And  this  prattle  was  as  sweet  to  him  as  poetry. 
She  had  seen  London  and  Windsor  Castle  and  a  host 
of  her  mothers '  relatives  and  Westminster  Abbey ;  and 
she  was  now  in  Paris,  but  they  were  only  to  stay  a  week ; 
they  were  going  right  on  to  Germany.  It  was  all  inde 
scribable.  He  must  see  it  for  himself.  She  had  met  a 
charming  girl,  a  "forty-second  cousin,"  who  was 
studying  music,  too;  and  they  were  traveling 
together,  and  her  cousin  spoke  French.  It  was 
terribly  warm,  and  there  were  no  sodawater 
fountains — not  even  ice-water  at  the  English  hotels. 
New  York  was  better  than  that!  What  was  he 
doing?  He  must  write  to  her  as  soon  as  they  were  set 
tled  some  place.  She  had  to  stop  now,  because  her 
cousin  was  taking  her  to  an  art  gallery.  She  was  his 
"sincerely,  'Miss  Margaret.'  " 


THE  IDEALIST  221 

The  faint  odor  of  violets— her  favorite  perfume — 
came  to  him  from  the  paper.  He  put  it  back  in  his 
breast  pocket,  folded  his  arms  over  it,  and  smiled  at  the 
sun-cracked  asphalt  of  the  walk.  "Miss  Margaret!" 

Next  day,  he  spent  his  forenoon  in  Central  Park,  and 
thereafter  he  made  daily  visits  to  one  or  another  of  the 
green  oases  in  the  city's  desert  of  brick  and  stone, 
refreshing  himself  for  the  afternoon's  work,  and  pon 
dering  over  his  new  experience  of  life  which  that  work 
had  given  him.  His  evenings  he  spent  with  Conroy, 
who  was  full  of  anecdotes  of  "Scotty"  and  "Redney" 
and  the  Irish  truck-drivers  and  warehousemen  with 
whom  he  worked.  And  when  Conroy  and  Pittsey  went 
out  together,  Don  remained  to  write  his  letters  to  his 
mother — whom  he  tried  to  cheer  with  vague  reports 
that  he  was  well  and  happy  and  at  work — and  to  his 
uncle,  for  whom  he  had  the  good  news  of  Conroy 's 
steadiness.  He  was  never  interrupted  by  the  expected 
arrival  of  the  mysterious  Tower.  He  took  out  his 
volume  of  Emerson,  one  night,  but  only  that  he  might 
recover  from  it  his  fading  picture  of  Margaret.  He 
cut  out  the  shadowy  face  and  put  it  in  the  back  of  his 
watch-case  where  he  might  look  at  it,  the  last  thing 
before  going  to  bed,  under  pretence  of  seeing  the  time ; 
and  his  thoughts  of  her  were  like  an  evening  prayer  to 
him. 

IT  was  on  one  of  his  trips  to  Central  Park  that  he  saw 
Tower  again— from  the  street  car,  as  Tower  was  hurry 
ing  down  Sixth  Avenue  towards  the  theatrical  agencies 
that  house  near  Herald  Square— and  on  a  characteris- 


222  DON-A-DREAMS 

tic  impulse  he  dropped  from  the  side-step  of  the  car 
and  ran  after  Tower  to  greet  him. 

Tower  turned,  startled,  and  shook  hands  apparently 
confused  by  the  surprise  of  an  unexpected  meeting. 

"Where  have  you  been?  Why  did  n't  you  come  to 
see  us?" 

He  answered  nervously:  "I  lost  your  address." 

"But  why  did  n't  you—  You  could  have  found  me 
at  the  same  place,  down  the  Bowery?" 

He  met  Don's  cordiality  with  a  shifting  eye.  He 
coughed.  "Well,"  he  said,  "to  tell  the  truth,  I  was 
ashamed  to  call." 

Don  cried:  "Why?" 

"Well  .     .     .     I  'm  his  brother." 

"Whose?" 

"Bert's." 

"Pitt's?" 

"Yes." 

"No !  Really?  Why  he  'd-he  'd  have  been  delighted 
to-" 

"I  should  have  called  before.  He  wrote  me  that  he 
was  coming." 

"But  even  so,  he"—  Don  frowned  over  it. 

Tower  turned  back,  up  the  street,  with  him.  ' '  In  the 
first  place,  I  did  n't  want  him  to  come— to  New  York." 

"Why?" 

"Well.     .     .     I  can't  tell  you  that." 

"Oh." 

"I  thought  that  if  I  did  n't  answer  his  letter,  he 
would  think  better  of  it,  and  stay  at  college.  .  .  Did 
you  tell  him  you  'd  met  me?" 


THE  IDEALIST  223 

"You  asked  me  not  to." 

' '  Yes  .  .  .  Yes,  so  I  did. ' '  He  walked  in  a  troubled 
silence.  "  'Tower'  is  my  stage  name."  Don  did  not 
reply ;  he  did  not  know  what  to  say ;  he  did  not  under 
stand  the  situation  at  .all.  "Where  were  you  going?" 
Tower  asked. . 

"To  Central  Park— for  a  walk.  I  saw  you  from  a 
car." 

"Are  you  still  boosting?" 

"Yes." 

"How  do  you  like  it?" 

"Not— not  very  well." 

Tower  nodded.  They  went  along  together,  under  the 
rattle  of  elevated  trains  that  made  conversation  impos 
sible.  When  they  reached  the  comparative  quiet  of  59th 
street  and  crossed  to  the  gate  of  the  Park,  Tower  said 
suddenly:  "You  see,  I  've  riot  been  very  prosperous  of 
late,  and  Bert— and  the  others  at  home— got  exagger 
ated  ideas  of  what  I  was  doing  here — and — I  was 
ashamed  to  have  him  know  that  I  'd  been  boosting  and 
all  that,  this  summer,  while  I  was  trying  to  get  an 
engagement— and  meeting  you  that  way— I  thought 
he  'd  guess."  His  voice  faded  out  on  an  explanation 
that  contradicted  itself.  His  difficulty  communicated 
itself  to  Don,  who  looked  down  at  his  feet,  guiltily, 
beginning  to  see  the  truth  behind  this  screen  of  words. 
"I  knew  he  would  n't  know  who  'Tower'  was,  even  if 
you  told  him.  It  's  not  the  name  I  use — always.  I — " 

Don  plucked  a  leaf  from  a  bush  as  he  passed  it. 
"He  '11  meet  you  some  day,  on  the  street." 

"Yes  .  That  's  what  I  'm  afrraid  of."    He 


224  DON-A-DREAMS 

laughed  unexpectedly.  "I  've  been  going  around  town 
like  a  thief." 

The  path  dipped  into  an  arched  tunnel  that  sup 
ported  the  driveway  overhead.  Their  foot-falls  rang 
hollowly  on  the  echo  there.  When  they  came  out  on 
the  silence  of  a  grove,  Don  said:  "It  would  be  better— 
If  you  come  to  see  him,  I  '11  not  let  him  know  that  I  've 
met  you  before.  He  does  n't  know  that  I  've  been 
boosting,  anyway." 

"Did  n't  you  tell  him?" 

"No.    I  was  ashamed  to,  too." 

"Tower"  smiled.  "It  is  n't  much  of  a  job,  is  it? 
I  've  been  doing  a  good  deal  of  it  myself." 

With  that  confession  as  a  bond  of  sympathy  between 
them,  the  rest  of  their  conversation  was  easy ;  and  Don, 
seated  beside  him,  on  a  bench  that  faced  the  driveway, 
learned  more  of  ' '  Tower ' '  than  he  had  ever  expected  to 
know. 

He  was  one  of  those  wanderers  who  leave  their  homes 
to  try  their  fortunes  in  large  cities  and  who  go  from 
place  to  place  with  no  certain  means  of  earning  a  living 
but  with  a  resourceful  knowledge  of  how  to  support 
themselves  from  day  to  day.  He  had  begun  life  as  a 
hotel  clerk,  and  had  left  his  desk  to  sell  tickets  in  the 
box  office  of  a  theater.  Then  he  had  gone  as  the  "press 
agent"  of  a  theatrical  company  "on  the  road";  and 
when  the  failure  of  the  company  had  left  him 
"stranded"  in  a  Western  town,  he  had  done  some  news 
paper  work,  managed  a  news-stand  in  Chicago,  been 
conductor  on  a  street-car  in  St.  Louis,  worked  in  a  cigar 
shop  in  Pittsburg,  traveled  in  the  cabooses  of  freight 


THE  IDEALIST  225 

trains  to  New  England,  "clerked  it"  in  Boston,  and 
come  to  New  York  as  helper  to  a  baggage  man  on  a  pas 
senger  boat.  Here,  fascinated  by  the  life  of  the 
"Rialto" — which  satisfied  all  his  restless  cravings  for 
Bohemianism  and  continual  change — he  had  lived  in 
the  background  of  the  stage  world,  a  looker-on,  play 
ing  "thinking  parts"  in  Broadway  theaters,  some 
times  assisting  in  stage  management  in  the  cheaper 
houses  and  sometimes  returning  to  the  ticket  wicket  of 
a  box  office.  Lately,  he  had  had  a  "run  of  bad  luck," 
and  he  had  been  left  for  the  summer  with  nothing  to  do 
but  this  "boosting"  and  "spieling"  at  Coney  Island 
or  on  the  Bowery.  He  had  been  going  the  round  of  the 
employment  agencies  on  the  morning  he  met  Don, 
afraid  that  in  his  work  at  the  musees  he  might  meet 
his  brother.  "As  soon  as  the  theatrical  season  opens," 
he  said,  "I  '11  be  all  right." 

"It  's  mighty  hard  to  find  work,  is  n't  it !"  Don  sym 
pathized. 

"Why  no!"  he  replied.  "I  never  had  any  trouble 
in  finding  something.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  I 
believe  that  has  been  the  curse  of  me.  I  found  out  how 
easy  it  was  to  get  along  at  a  certain  level  and  how  hard 
it  was  to  get  above  it — and  I  have  stopped  at  merely 
getting  along." 

He  gave  it  in  his  gentle  voice  that  had  for  Don  such 
a  fascinating  note  of  wisdom  and  experience ;  and  Don 
felt  that  here  was  a  man  who  could  solve  all  his  prob 
lems  for  him.  He  tried  to  put  in  words  the  effect  which 
the  Bowery  had  had  on  him  and  the  questions  which  it 
had  aroused  in  him ;  and  ' '  Tower ' '  listened  to  his  stam- 

15 


226  DON-A-DREAMS 

mering  explanations,  nodding  across  the  blundering 
pauses  and  keeping  his  eyes  on  the  sun-lit  driveway 
with  a  thoughtful  attention. 

"Why  do  we  know  these  people  are  wrong — living 
that  way?  Why  are  they  committing  suicide — and 
drinking  themselves  stupid — and  looking  like  a  lot  of 
miserable  condemned  wretches — terrible  faces  all  eaten 
up  with  disease  and  wretchedness — if  there  's  no  reason 
why  we  should  n't  be  brutes — if  it  's  natural  for  us  to 
be  brutes — if  we  are  all  brutes?  That  's  what  I  don't 
understand.  If  honesty  and  morality  are  just  poppy 
cock  stuff  that  we  learn  when  we  're  children — like 
Santa  Glaus — why  are  n't  frank  dishonesty  and  frank 
immorality  happy  instead  of  openly  miserable — and 
killing  themselves?" 

"Tower"  shook  his  head.  "I  don't  know,  I  'm  sure. 
I  never  thought  of  them  that  way.  They  're  just  peo 
ple  to  me — people  I  meet.  I  suppose  I  get  along  with 
them  so  well,  because  I  just  take  them  as  I  would  any 
one  else.  .  .  I  can  see,  though,"  he  added,  "why 
they  kept  you  boosting  down  there. ' ' 

"Why?" 

He  looked  at  Don,  as  if  summing  him  up,  feature  by 
feature.  "Because  that  sort  of  thing  shows  in  your 
face." 

' '  How  do  you  mean  ? ' ' 

' '  Well,  any  one  can  see  that  you  're  not  one  of  them. ' ' 

Don  blushed,  girlishly.     "Neither  are  you." 

"I  act  not  to  be — so  that  no  one  will  think  I  am. 
You  are  n't — and  any  one  can  see  that  you  're  not  act 
ing  it" 


THE  IDEALIST  227 

"I  wish  I  were  out  of  it." 

"Well,  I  hear  they  're  going  to  begin  rehearsing 
some  early  openings  next  month.  There  '11  be  suping. ' ' 

"Is  that  better?" 

"Oh  my,  yes.  .  .  .  I  '11  call  on  Bert  to-night  or 
to-morrow,  and  then  we  '11  see  what  we  can  do.  ... 
Let  's  take  a  walk  now,  and  forget  it." 

DON  returned  to  his  "boosting,"  that  afternoon,  with 
the  hope  that  he  should  soon  be  free  of  it;  but  he 
returned  in  a  disgust  of  it  which  made  it  almost  unen 
durable  now  that  "Tower"  had  admitted  what  a 
degradation  it  was.  The  day  was  steamingly  hot  and 
humid;  the  air  was  blue  with  a  choking  haze;  and  the 
stones  of  the  Bowery,  still  wet  from  a  previous  night's 
rain,  seemed  sweating,  greased,  slimy  with  a  thin  mud 
that  slipped  under  the  heel.  The  "barker"  in  the 
door  of  the  Musee  was  shouting  impatiently,  the  pers 
piration  running  down  his  neck  into  the  soiled  hand 
kerchief  which  he  had  stuffed  inside  his  collar.  The 
free  performance  dragged  on  without  spirit.  The 
"spieler"  wiped  his  forehead,  his  eloquence  gone 
mechanical,  a  thing  learned  by  rote  and  feebly  repeated. 
The  manager  chafed  over  the  meagerness  of  the  audi 
ences  that  gathered  to  all  this  "  bally hooing"  and  were 
herded  in  by  Don  and  his  fellow  boosters. 

Don  did  not  speak  to  any  of  the  other  "touts";  he 
had  never  done  so ;  and  they  had  never  made  any 
approaches  to  him,  knowing — as  "Tower"  had  said — 
that  he  was  not  one  of  them.  They  showed  no  curiosity 
concerning  him,  for  curiosity  is  not  encouraged  on  the 


228  DON-A-DREAMS 

Bowery.  They  accepted  him  as  a  young  fellow  ' '  down 
on  his  luck, ' '  and  were  more  indifferent  to  him  than  he 
was  to  them.  One  of  them  asked  him  for  a  match  and 
merely  nodded  at  Don's  polite  reply  that  he  was  sorry 
he  had  none — nodded  as  if  the  answer  was  what  he  had 
expected.  The  manager,  in  the  exit,  as  Don  went  out, 
pleaded  hoarsely:  "Say,  'bo,  fer  G — 's  sake,  shove  'em 
up.  String  'em.  String  'em."  And  Don  did  not 
reply — because  he  did  not  understand. 

He  was  coming  out  from  the  second  push  of  the  final 
take — returning  to  his  pocket  the  dime  which  he  had 
just  received  from  the  manager — when  a  hand  was  laid 
on  his  shoulder  from  behind  and  he  looked  around  at 
the  grinning  Dixon,  the  man  who  had  been  tout  for  the 
unspeakable  Vandever. 

"Well,  I  'm  d !"  he  said.  "If  you  ain't  the 

slickest  con  on  the  walk.  Yuh  took  me  all  right !  Yuh 
played  me  fer  a  sucker."  Don  stared  at  his  admiring 
smile  of  good  fellowship.  "What  sort  o'  back-cappin' 
were  yuh  tryin '  to  come  on  me  anyway,  that  day  ? ' ' 

"What?" 

"Aw,  shuffle  'em.  Shuffle  'em,"  he  laughed.  "I  'm 
on." 

"I  don't  understand  what  you  're  talking  about." 

Dixon  spat  on  the  sidewalk  and  smiled  undiscour- 
aged.  "Say,  what  's  the  use?  I  got  a  graft  worth  two 

o'  this  d d  supper  show  here— if  yuh  want  some 

boostin' — out  on  Coney.  It  's  playin'  too  close  to  the 
cushion  fer  me.  An'  these  touts — I  been  sizin'  'em  up 
— they  ain't  the  thing.  They  'd  get  the  turn  called  on 
'em,  first  hand.  Yuh  're  the  guy  I  want.  Yuh  've  got 
a  mug  to  steer  Mary's  little  lamb."  He  saw  the  dis- 


THE  IDEALIST  229 

gust  of  Don's  expression,  and  misunderstood  it. 
' '  Honest,  now.  I  ain  't  tryin '  to  sting  y '  again.  This  's 
on  the  straight.  If  yuh  want  the  dough—" 

Don  had  been  watching  a  street  car  approaching 
behind  Dixon;  when  it  was  almost  opposite,  he  darted 
aside,  as  if  dodging  an  attempt  to  catch  him,  ran  out 
into  the  roadway  and  sprang  on  the  step  of  the  car  as 
it  clanged  at  full  speed  up  the  street.  And  looking 
back  over  his  shoulder,  panting,  as  if  in  fear  of  pur 
suit,  he  saw  the  amazed  Dixon  staring  after  him,  open- 
mouthed.  As  he  sank  into  his  seat,  the  shame  of  hav 
ing  fallen  to  Dixon 's  level  broke  on  him  in  a  hot  blush. 
It  burned  him  like  a  brand  of  infamy  when  the  con 
ductor — who  had  seen  him  running  like  a  pickpocket 
and  had  expected  a  policeman  to  appear  on  his  trail — 
looked  at  his  money  suspiciously,  hesitated,  and  then 
reluctantly  rang  up  his  fare. 

HE  was  noticeably  silent  at  the  dinner  table.  "What  's 
wrong,  Don?"  Conroy  asked  him,  when  they  were 
washing  dishes  together.  "Have  you  been  'fired'?" 

"No, "he  said.  "I  've'left.'" 

"What  was  it?    What  have  you  been  doing?" 

Don  shook  his  head.  He  felt  that  no  matter  how 
long  he  lived,  he  must  carry  the  guilt  of  that  employ 
ment  with  him  as  a  crime  which  he  could  not  confess. 
He  shuddered  to  think  that  some  day  he  might  tell  her 
— unable  to  have  such  a  secret  between  them — and  that 
she  would  despise  him  for  it. 

He  went  to  bed,  that  night,  without  looking-  at  her 
face  in  his  watch. 


230  DON-A-DREAMS 


VII 


IT  was  a  part  of  his  young  intensity  that  he  should 
regard  this  experience  on  the  Bowery  as  a  fall  from 
honor  of  which  he  should  always  bear  the  mark.  He 
had  none  of  that  priggish  vanity  of  self -righteousness 
which  so  passionately  regrets  the  soiling  of  his  garment ; 
and  he  had  little  of  the  sensitive  virtue  that  continues 
to  shudder  with  abhorrence  at  thought  of  the  filth 
which  it  has  touched.  But  it  seemed  to  him — as  he 
tried  to  explain  to  the  elder  Pittsey — that  "there  are 
laws  of  morality,  like  the  laws  of  health,  and  if  a  man 
breaks  them  he— he  has  to  pay  for  it  in  the  same  sort 
of  way  ...  by  being  sick  morally  ...  by  weak 
ening  himself  morally.  And  I  believe  that  's  what  's 
wrong  with  all  those  unhappy  wretches  on  the  Bowery. 
They  're  breaking  the  laws  of  morality,  and  they  're 
suffering  for  it  just  the  same  as  they  would  if  they 
broke  the  laws  of  healthy  living." 

"But  are  they?"  the  other  queried,  amused.  "Are 
they  suffering?" 

"Well,  they  look  as  if  they  were.  They  kill  them 
selves  with  carbolic  acid,  as  if  they  were. ' ' 

"That  'sso." 

"Of  course  it  's  so.  They  can  say  what  they  please 
about  man  being  only  a  higher  animal.  If  he  is  only 
a  higher  animal,  at  least  he  is  a  higher  animal ;  and  the 
law  of  development  .  .  .  that  has  raised  him  .  .  . 
is  a  real  law,  and  he  can't  go  against  it  without  suffer 
ing  for  it.  I  believe  that!'* 


THE  IDEALIST  231 

"Well,  that  's  something  to  believe-" 

The  elder  Pittsey  had  called  upon  the  younger  on 
the  previous  evening,  having  obtained  the  address — s' 
he  explained — from  the  "folks  at  home";  and  he  had 
been  introduced  to  Don  by  his  proud  brother,  who  car 
ried  himself  with  a  subdued  and  respectful  admiration 
for  Walter  and  was  impressed  by  the  easy  friendliness 
of  manner  which  developed  at  once  between  Walter 
and  Don.  He  even  dropped  the  note  of  raillery  in  his 
relations  with  Don,  when  the  succeeding  days  seemed  to 
strengthen  that  friendliness;  and  if  he  was  somewhat 
envious  of  the  way  in  which  Don  was  admitted  to  con 
fidences  from  which  he  himself  was  excluded,  he  con 
soled  himself  by  falling  back  on  Conroy  for  company 
and  left  his  brother  to  his  choice. 

It  followed  that  Don  was  free  to  walk  and  argue  with 
his  new  friend  as  much  as  he  wished ;  and  Walter  Pitt 
sey  was  nothing  if  not  a  patient  listener.  The  discus 
sions  were  rather  one-sided,  and  they  were  always  of 
abstract  questions — for  Don  was  still  incapable  of  talk 
ing  of  himself — but  they  were  the  aggressive  arguments 
of  an  idealist  who  was  beginning  to  find  his  voice;  and 
they  marked  a  stage  in  Don's  development  from  his 
past  to  his  future. 

They  were,  of  course,  merely  the  attempts  of  a  bewil 
dered  youth  to  find  some  working  compromise,  on 
which  to  live,  between  the  barren  scepticisms  of  his  edu 
cation  and  the  instincts  which  that  education  could  not 
kill.  He  was  at  that  most  violent  period  of  a  man's 
growth,  when  the  crises  of  all  his  fevers  come  on  him  to 
gether,  when  he  is  tormented  by  the  passionate  uncer 
tainties  of  his  love  and  the  chilling  uncertainties  of  his 


232  DON-A-DEEAMS 

unsettled  religious  beliefs  and  the  groping  uncer 
tainties  of  his  attempts  to  find  a  place  in  a  mad  world. 
He  walked  the  streets,  day  and  night,  with  Margaret's 
letters  in  his  pocket,  the  struggle  for  existence  raging 
visibly  around  him?  and  the  immense  void  of  the  sky 
overhead  dwarfing  his  loneliness  or  oppressing,  by  its 
indifference,  his  hope. 

IT  was  the  mark  of  his  impracticality  that  he  first 
grew  easy  in  his  mind  about  his  merely  worldly  pros 
pects  ;  for,  having  earned  a  few  dollars  on  the  Bowery, 
he  accepted  them  as  confirming  Walter  Pittsey's  assur 
ance  that  it  was  always  easy  to  find  "something"  to  do ; 
and  he  resigned  himself  to  waiting  idly  for  the  theatri 
cal  season  to  begin.  He  idled  in  Central  Park,  trying 
to  make  himself  familiar  with  all  the  puzzling  turns  of 
that  labyrinth  of  walks  in  the  "Ramble,"  or  sitting  to 
smile  at  the  happiness  of  the  children  playing  in  the 
"Mall,"  or  watching  the  contented  swans  floating 
above  their  inverted  images  in  the  sunlit  still  waters  of 
the  Ponds.  He  idled  in  the  reading-room  of  the  Astor 
Library,  turning  the  thumbed  pages  of  the  illustrated 
magazines  or  drowsing  over  the  philosophical  and  scien 
tific  essays  on  Assyrian  inscriptions  and  the  disputed 
authorship  of  the  gospels  and  the  latest  experiments  in 
the  transmission  of  electrical  energy  without  the  use  of 
wires.  He  idled  in  his  room,  of  an  evening,  reading 
and  re-reading  the  gossip  of  the  newspapers,  or  sitting 
with  empty  eyes  before  his  memories  of  Margaret — 
memories  that  were  cast  up  in  pictures  of  her  on  the 
drift  of  smoke  in  which  he  brooded;  for  he  had  begun 
to  use  tobacco. 


THE  IDEALIST  233 

% 

He  was  worried  somewhat  by  Conroy,  who  borrowed 
money  from  him  with  the  careless  air  of  asking  for 
what  he  knew  was  his  own  and  spent  it  ostensibly  on 
theaters  and  cigars.  It  was  evident  from  Conroy 's 
talk  of  "rushing  the  growler"  and  "hitting  the  can" 
that  the  men  at  the  warehouse  were  jovial  drinkers; 
and  he  himself,  on  more  than,  one  warm  evening,  came 
to  his  dinner  with  a  sleepy  lack  of  appetite  that  smelled 
sourly  of  beer.  Don  put  the  situation  before  Walter 
Pittsey,  on  one  of  their  rounds  of  the  theatrical 
agencies;  and  the  older  man  made  light  of  it.  "A  lit 
tle  beer  won 't  hurt  him,  you  know.  It  's  harmless  stuff. 
Besides,  he  's  old  enough  to  take  care  of  himself. ' ' 

"But  I  'm  responsible  for  him,  to  his  father,"  Don 
said.  "He  promised  not  to  drink." 

"Well  I  should  n't  make  trouble  for  him,  if  I  were 
you.  He  '11  probably  go  home  at  Christmas  and  stay 
there.  Then  he  '11  be  off  your  hands.  Come  up  to  the 
house  to-night,  will  you  ?  There  's  somebody  there  I  'd 
like  you  to  meet." 

He  lived  on  one  of  the  upper  floors  of  a  theatrical 
boarding-house  off  Sixth  Avenue,  but  he  had  never  be 
fore  invited  Don  to  his  room,  and  Don  had  been  left  to 
gather,  from  what  he  heard  of  the  house,  that  it  was 
the  rough  Bohemian  abode  of  vaudeville  "ham-fatters" 
— as  Pittsey  called  them.  Pittsey  professed  to  like  the 
house  because  the  boarders  had  reduced  the  mistress  of 
it  to  a  proper  meekness  of  spirit.  "The  last  time  she 
tried  to  make  trouble  for  them,"  he  had  explained, 
they  carried  her  saucepans  and  the  covers  of  her  kitchen 
range  up  to  the  roof  and  dropped  them  down  the  chim- 


234  DON-A-DREAMS 

ney.  They  would  n't  leave  the  place,  and  she  had  n't 
the  nerve  to  go  to  the  police  court,  so  she  has  to  get  along 
with  them.  But  I  should  n't  advise  you  to  call  on  me 
there.  Generally,  she  does  n't  answer  the  door  bell. 
And  when  she  does,  she  is  n't  exactly  polite." 

Because  of  this  state  of  things,  Don  and  he  had 
always  met  at  appointed  places  on  street  corners  or  in 
public  squares ;  and  now  Don  replied  to  the  invitation 
to  call  with  a  doubt  of  Mrs.  Kahrle's  reception  of  him. 
' '  Well, ' '  the  actor  said,  ' '  come  at  eight  o  'clock  and  I  '11 
meet  you  at  the  door. ' ' 

He  went — to  escape  from  the  thought  that  he  should 
be  writing  a  letter,  to  his  uncle,  about  Conroy. 

It  was  an  old-fashioned  house  with  a  balcony  that 
crossed  the  sills  of  the  lower  windows  and  connected 
with  the  porch  steps ;  and  when  Don  arrived,  that  even 
ing,  two  girls  in  summer  gowns  were  sitting  with  Wal 
ter  Pittsey  on  the  balcony,  fanning  themselves  with 
newspapers  and  chatting  to  him  while  he  smoked.  He 
rose  to  greet  Don  and  to  introduce  him  to  "Miss 
Arden"  and  "Miss  Morrison";  and  because  Don  could 
see  their  faces  only  dimly — and  knew  that  they  could 
not  see  his— he  was  not  embarrassed.  He  was  all  the 
more  startled,  in  his  security,  when  Miss  Morrison,  as 
he  sat  beside  her,  said  in  a  calm  aside :  "  I  suppose  you 
have  forgotten  me,  Mr.  Gregg?" 

He  stared  at  her  in  the  half-light,  trying  to  distin 
guish  her  features,  of  which  she  gave  him  only  the 
indistinct  profile.  (Miss  Arden  was  continuing  her 
conversation  with  Pittsey:  "Oh,  she  fell  down  in  it. 
Terribly!  Terribly!  She  was  n't  in  the  part  for  a 
minute.")  Don  said:  "Why  no—  Yes.  I— " 


THE  IDEALIST  235 

Miss  Morrison  waited  for  him  to  go  on.  When  he  did 
not,  she  added,  still  fanning  herself,  and  without  turn 
ing  to  him:  "Have  you  forgotten  when  you  went  to 
Miss  Morris 's  school  ? ' ' 

"Miss  Morris's  school?"  He  could  see  no  connection 
between  that  almost  forgotten  past  and  this  meeting 
with  an  occupant  of  Mrs.  Kahrle's  boarding-house.  He 
laughed  nervously.  "Perhaps,  if  I  could  see  you,  I—" 

Pittsey  had  struck  a  match  to  relight  his  cigar.  She 
said  to  him:  "Give  me  that  one,  Walter.  You  light 
another."  And  reaching  the  match  from  him,  she 
turned  with  it  held  before  her  face,  at  the  level  of  her 
chin,  looked,  without  a  smile,  at  Don. 

He  did  not  notice  the  theatricality  of  the  action.  He 
saw  only  that  she  had  the  face  of  a  beautiful  mask,  and 
that  it  was  as  self-possessed  as  marble  itself,  with  liv 
ing  eyes  that  studied  him  as  he  stared  at  her.  She  said 
calmly :  ' '  He  does  n  't  remember  me. ' ' 

He  had  a  confused  and  vague  recollection  of  having 
been  in  this  same  situation,  of  having  heard  her  say 
these  same  words,  before;  but  he  could  not  remember 
where  it  had  been,  and  he  found  nothing  familiar  in 
her  face.  The  match  burned  out  between  them.  She 
explained,  as  she  dropped  the  glowing  ember:  "I  'm 
Rose  Morris — her  little  sister." 

He  recalled  her  as  a  small  girl  in  short  dresses,  with 
a  scarlet  hair  ribbon — a  lonely  figure  in  the  playground 
of  Miss  Morris's  school,  where  the  other  children  had 
been  suspicious  of  her  as  the  sister  of  the  tyrant. 
There  had  been  something  "queer"  about  her.  They 
had  accused  her  of  spying  on  them  and  of  carrying  re 
ports  of  their  behaviour  to  Miss  Morris ;  and  he  felt  the 


236  DON-A-DREAMS 

shame  now,  of  having  been  a  party  to  such  an  accusa 
tion. 

She  said :  "  I  should  have  known  you,  I  think. ' ' 

"You  've  —You  've  changed,"  he  apologized. 

She  fanned  herself  in  a  reflective  silence.  "Yes,  I 
suppose  I  have." 

Pittsey  put  in:  "You  've  changed  your  name,  at 
least." 

"I  've  added  a  '  son,' "  she  said. 

"Oh,  my  dear,"  Miss  Arden  laughed.  "How  shock 
ing!" 

She  ignored  the  remark  in  a  way  which  Don  was  to 
find  characteristic;  and  she  continued  her  conversation 
with  him  as  if  she  were  insensible  of  the  presence  of  the 
others.  He  was  surprised  to  discover  from  her  ques 
tions  that  she  knew  he  had  gone  to  college  with  Conroy 
and  had  not  completed  his  Freshman  year;  that  she 
remembered  Frankie  and  him  at  the  High  School, 
where  she  had  looked  up  to  him  from  a  lower  "form." 
It  was  evident  that  she  had  shared  the  curiosity  of  the 
elder  Miss  Morris  in  the  progress  through  life  of  one 
of  her  first  pupils.  He  exchanged  smiling  reminiscences 
of  Coulton  with  her,  and  told  her  what  had  become  of 
this  one  and  that  one  of  the  companions  of  their 
school  days,  in  return  for  similar  gossip  concerning 
others  with  whom  she  had  remained  in  touch.  And 
when  he  left  her — at  Miss  Arden 's  announcement  that 
it  was  time  they  were  all  in  their  beds — -he  carried  away 
with  him  a  pleased  glow  of  surprise  at  having  met  a 
stranger  who  had  been,  for  years  and  unknown  to  him, 
a  friendly  well-wisher. 


THE  IDEALIST  237 

He  learned  from  Walter  Pittsey  that  she  was  on  the 
stage.  "She  used  to  be  in  comic  opera,  I  think,"  he 
said,  "probably  in  the  chorus.  She  's  aiming  at  the 
legitimate  now,  but  I  imagine  she  's  not  doing  much. 
No  temperament.  She  makes  a  good  show-girl,  I  sup 
pose.  She  ought  to  be  singing  in  a  church  choir. ' ' 

But  it  was  not  her  lack  of  temperament  that  struck 
Don  in  the  meetings  that  followed;  it  was  a  strange 
effect  she  gave  him  of  being  concealed  in  her  own  body 
— hidden  behind  her  beauty  that  attracted  an  admira 
tion  which  did  not  reach  her  real  self — silent,  or  speak 
ing  as  if  from  a  distance  of  thought.  She  was  younger 
than  Miss  Arden,  who  was  a  woman  of  thirty-five,  at 
least,  and  already  puffy  under  the  eyes  and  hollow  in 
the  cheeks  where  she  might  have  been,  at  some  time, 
dimpled.  And  yet  Miss  Arden  seemed  younger  in  heart, 
chattered  more  spiritedly  and  laughed  with  less  reserve. 
When  they  made  an  excursion  in  the  street  car  to  Fort 
George,  on  a  Sunday  afternoon,  she  was  gaily  juvenile 
beside  Miss  Morris's  staid  sobriety;  and,  with  Walter 
Pittsey,  she  made  the  life  of  the  party,  while  Don  and 
Miss  Morris  listened,  watched  and  smiled. 

They  rode  between  the  monotonous  fronts  of  cheap 
apartment  houses,  that  were  rusty  with  the  iron  bal 
conies  of  fire  escapes  and  overflowing  with  tenants  who 
hung  out  the  windows  panting,  or  crowded,  for  air, 
to  the  doors.  They  rode,  behind  the  motorman's  insis 
tent  gong,  through  the  games  of  the  street  children,  and 
were  deafened  by  competitive  shrieks.  They  came  to 
the  hills  of  the  suburbs,  covered  with  patient  ceme 
teries,  orphan  asylums,  homes  for  the  aged  and  the  blind 


238  DON-A-DREAMS 

—all  as  quiet  as  prisons— the  field  hospitals  for  that 
army  of  workers  encamped  in  the  city  below.  And 
they  ended  on  the  veranda  of  a  cafe  crowning  a  breezy 
hilltop  above  the  river  valley  and  facing  a  peacefully 
wooded  horizon  that  was  smoke-blue  in  the  mist  of  a 
humid  midsummer  afternoon. 

There  they  ate  tricolored  ices  and  drank  cool  drinks, 
while  Pittsey  and  Miss  Arden  discussed  the  affairs  of 
"the  profesh,"  and  Miss  Morris  turned  to  the  breeze 
with  a  thoughtful  languor  that  showed  in  the  slow 
movements  of  her  eyes  as  she  looked  from  the  rover  up 
the  sides  of  the  valley  and  across  the  hilltops,  peak  after 
peak.  When  Pittsey  proposed  that  they  stroll  down  the 
slope  through  the  inviting  underwoods,  she  said :  "  I  '11 
wait  for  you  here." 

It  was  Don  who  remained,  by  tacit  consent  of  the 
others,  to  keep  her  company. 

She  watched  a  bird  soaring  and  sailing  over  the  val 
ley;  and  she  asked,  without  taking  her  eyes  from  it: 
"Won't  you  smoke?"  He  replied,  in  the  same  tone, 
that  it  would  be  "a  crime"  to  soil  such  a  breeze  with 
the  smell  of  tobacco.  The  bosom  of  her  light  gown  rose 
and  fell  over  a  long  sigh;  she  laid  her  arm  along  the 
veranda  rail,  and  the  drooping  line  from  her  round 
shoulder  to  her  curved  wrist  and  relaxed  hand  had  the 
unstudied  grace  of  all  her  unconscious  poses.  He 
smiled  with  an  gesthetie  satisfaction  in  her  beauty  that 
repeated  the  repose  of  the  calm  distance  and  held  the 
color  of  his  mood;  and  he  was  the  more  irritated— by 
the  intrusion  of  the  world  they  had  left  behind  them 
—when  she  asked  abruptly:  "Are  you  going  on  the 


THE  IDEALIST  239 

He  replied :  "I  don 't  know  what  I  'm  going  to  do. 
I  'm  taking  anything  I  can  get.  .  .  Why?" 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "it  's  all  so  hateful!"  And  with  a 
suddenness  that  amazed  him,  he  found  himself  behind 
the  barriers  of  her  silence  and  admitted  to  a  confidence 
which— though  at  the  time  it  moved  him  to  a  recipro 
cation  in  kind — he  was  to  look  back  upon  doubtfully, 
as  if  it  had  been  an  indelicacy.  "  If  I  were  a  man,  I  'd 
do  anything— anything  but  that— dig  ditches,  anything 
— work  on  a  farm,  anything.  You  don't  know  what  it 
is— the  managers,  the  women — such  vulgarity— and  to 
be  set  up  on  a  platform  to  be  stared  at,  like  a  freak  in  a 
dime  museum!  ...  If  I  had  learned  something — 
something  to  make  a  living  by ! "  But  she  had  only  her 
music  and  her  singing ;  and  her  music  was  nothing,  and 
her  singing  was  scarcely  fit  for  the  chorus.  She  had 
gone  into  the  "legitimate"— as  they  called  their  serious 
attempts  to  be  dramatic— because  the  life  of  a  chorus 
girl  was  a  disgusting  vanity  to  her.  She  had  not  suc 
ceeded.  "I  can't  do  the  things  they  do  to  succeed," 
she  said.  "And  neither  can  you." 

"No,"  he  replied,  "perhaps  I  can't.  .  .  Though 
I  've  done  one  thing  since  I  came  here — a  thing  I 
did  n't  believe  I  could  ever  have  done.  And  I  never 
will  again.  Never!" 

The  emotion  gave  his  face  a  life  which  she  had  not 
seen  in  it  before.  She  raised  her  arm  on  the  rail  and 
leaned  her  cheek  against  her  hand,  watching  him. 

"Besides,"  he  argued,  "what  difference  does  it 
make  whether  we  succeed  or  not  ?  What  difference  will 
it  make  in  a  hundred  years  from  now— so  long  as  we 


240  DON-A-DREAMS 

don't  do  anything  wrong — anything  to  be  ashamed  of 
—anything—  '  He  made  a  gesture  that  expressed  noth 
ing  at  all. 

"Yes,"  she  said.  "A  hundred  years  from  now!" 
She  gazed  out  over  the  valley,  thinking  of  the  crowded 
cemeteries  she  had  passed  in  the  street  car.  She  sighed. 
"I  wonder  where  we  '11  be  in  a  hundred  years  from 
now. ' ' 

It  was  after  a  musing  silence  that  he  replied :  "  I  wish 
I  knew." 

"They  were  happier,"  she  said,  "those  people  in  the 
graveyards.  They  had  something  to  believe  in."  She 
came  out  of  her  reverie  to  find  him  leaning  towards  her 
across  the  table,  saying  excitedly :  "  So  ha\  e  we ! " 

She  stared  at  him.  "What?" 

"Something  to  believe  in." 

She  did  not  reply. 

"I  know,"  he  said.  "I  Ve  felt  about  it  just  as  you 
do.  But  look  here :  if  man  was  an  ape,  once,  if  he  lived 
in  caves,  if  he  was  the  savage  brute  that  the  Fiji  Island 
ers  are  now,  he  rose  above  it,  did  n  't  he  ?  He  grew,  and 
he  found  out  the  laws  that  governed  his  growth,  and 
he  wrote  them  down,  and  enforced  them,  and  made  a 
religion  of  them— did  n't  he?  Well,  to  me,  those  laws 
are  as  real  as  the  laws  of  gravity — every  bit!  And 
there  's  something  behind  them  just  as  sure  as  there  's 
matter  behind  the  law  of  gravity.  Yes.  They  can  deny 
that.  Let  them !  They  have  to  live  in  accordance  with 
those  laws,  and  they  know  it.  And  so  do  we.  If  we  do 
what  's  wrong,  we  '11  suffer  for  it— in  ourselves— just 
the  same  as  we  'd  suffer  in  our  bodies  if  we  did  n't  obey 
the  laws  of  hygiene !  We— ' ' 


THE  IDEALIST  241 

She  had  looked  over  his  head  at  the  unexpected  return 
of  the  others.  He  had  caught  the  warning  in  her 
expression,  and  glanced  back,  sitting  up  in  his  chair. 

Miss  Arden  came  smiling.  ''Well!  You  seemed 
interested. ' ' 

Miss  Morris  asked,  defensively :  "Where  did  you  go?" 

Pittsey  said,  with  an  amused  eye  on  her:  "He  's 
been  having  one  of  his  serious  talks  with  you,  has  he?" 

"It  's  a  relief,"  she  replied  coolly,  "to  be  talked  to, 
sometimes,  as  if  you  had  brains. ' ' 

Miss  Arden  laughed,  with  all  the  sprightliness  of 
stage  comedy.  "Ah,  my  dear,  be  careful!  It  's  the 
most  dangerous  form  of  flirtation." 

"Do  we  start  back  now?"  Miss  Morris  asked,  so 
oblivious  to  their  banter  that  she  saved  even  Don's 
shamefacedness. 

They  started  back,  but  she  remained  thoughtfully 
indifferent  to  them— and  to  him— on  the  street  car.  It 
was  not  until  they  were  parting  at  Mrs.  Kahrle's  door, 
that  she  said,  in  a  low  aside  to  him:  "Thank  you — for 
a  delightful  afternoon."  And  her  tone  of  gratitude 
was  so  deep  with  suppressed  intensity  that  it  startled 
him. 

It  was  the  result  of  that  tone— and  of  the  qualms 
of  conscience  which  it  awakened  in  him — that  when  he 
returned  to  his  room,  he  sat  down  to  write  to  his  uncle 
a  full  report  of  Conroy's  condition  and  of  his  own  part 
in  it.  He  felt  that  he  must  clear  his  honor  of  this  affair 
before  he  could  meet  her  again.  He  resolved  to  tell  her 
of  what  he  had  done  on  the  Bowery;  and  he  spent  an 
hour,  in  the  evening,  imagining  himself  telling  her  and 
picturing  her  reception  of  his  confession. 

16 


242  DON-A-DREAMS 

That  was  a  measure  of  the  difference  between  his 
thought  of  her  and  his  thought  of  Margaret.  He  could 
not  have  imagined  himself  making  such  a  confession  to 
Margaret.  With  a  lover's  unconscious  duplicity,  even 
in  his  reveries,  he  concealed  from  her  everything  in 
himself  that  did  not  seem  worthy  of  her. 


VIII 

THE  "Rialto,"  on  these  August  mornings,  was  the 
resort  of  all  the  actors  and  actresses  who  were  still  in 
search  of  an  engagement  for  the  "season";  and  Don 
accompanied  Walter  Pittsey,  from  agency  to  agency, 
in  the  atmosphere  of  a  life  that  was  new  to  him.  Here 
were  the  leading  men  of  road  companies,  bearing  them 
selves  with  an  obvious  "stage  presence,"  dressed  in  the 
correct  summer  costume  of  the  footlights  and  preserv 
ing  the  unreality  of  the  stage  in  the  very  faultlessness 
of  clothes  that  had  the  appearance  of  being  part  of  a 
theatrical  "wardrobe."  Here  were  comedians,  more  or 
less  "low,"  who  carried  a  lighter  manner,  a  necktie 
fluttering  in  the  breeze,  a  straw  hat  slanted  over  the 
eyes,  a  hand  waved  in  an  airy  greeting  as  they  hurried 
by.  Chorus  girls  of  conspicuous  complexions,  in  gowns 
of  lace  and  applique,  raised  their  dragging  skirts  to 
show  silk  petticoats  of  pink  or  green,  and  stared  through 
their  heavy  chiffon  veils  at  the  would-b'e  "ingenues"  in 
their  simple  frocks.  Soubrettes,  "heavies,"  "general 
utilities"  and  young  graduates  from  dramatic  schools, 


THE  IDEALIST  243 

walked  haughtily  past  the  groups  of  untrained  and  awk 
ward  beginners  who  had  registered — as  Don  had — with 
the  agent  who  engaged  ''supers."  And  they  all  passed 
and  repassed,  met  and  nodded,  bowed  and  shook  hands 
effusively,  in  a  way  that  reminded  Don  of  the  students 
in  the  college  corridors,  meeting  after  their  Christmas 
holidays,  hailing  friends  and  acknowledging  acquaint 
ances.  There  was  the  same  air  of  camaraderie,  tem 
pered  by  the  same  marked  distinction  of  distance  in  the 
manner  of  the  upper  years  to  the  lower  ones ;  there  was 
the  same  tone  of  social  irresponsibility  in  the  circle  of 
a  privileged  life ;  and  there  was  the  same  note  of  unreal 
ity  and  evanescence — derived,  in  this  case,  from  the 
exaggerated  manner  of  these  Bohemians  who  "made 
up ' '  for  the  street  as  if  for  a  stage  entrance  and  walked 
in  the  sunshine  as  if  it  had  been  a  calcium  light. 

But  though  they  reminded  him  of  his  college  days,  it 
was  only  to  make  him  happy  that  he  had  left  those  days 
behind  him.  His  last  letter  from  his  mother  had  brought 
him  word  that  Frank  had  passed  his  "matriculation" 
with  honors,  at  the  head  of  his  school;  and  Don  was 
glad  of  the  fact  that  his  brother 's  rivalry  could  not  pur 
sue  him  to  the  Rialto.  He  contrasted  this  street  with 
the  streets  of  Coulton,  and  his  liberty  here  with  the  life 
which  he  might  have  led  at  home.  The  difference  for 
him  was  all  the  difference  between  romantic  adventure 
and  drab  matter-of-fact.  The  catchwords  of  greeting 
which  he  heard  in  the  waiting  rooms  of  the  agencies — 
"Hello!  What  luck?" — came  to  him  like  the  crou 
pier's  call  to  a  gambler.  Youth  pursued  opportunity  in 
a  game  of  chance  in  which  futures  were  at  stake,  and 


244  DON-A-DREAMS 

every  turn  of  the  hour  was  watched  with  eagerness. 
This  was  a  life  to  keep  the  heart  beating. 

He  had  met  Kidder,  the  ''super's"  agent,  and  been 
looked  on  with  a  favor  which  was  largely  of  Walter 
Pittsey's  procuring.  "You  're  all  right,"  Pittsey  had 
assured  him.  "Kidder  has  a  problem  here,  trying  to 
get  intelligent-looking  supers.  He  has  to  pick  up  all 
sorts  of  bums  and  muckers  to  fill  up  his  ranks.  I  've 
asked  him  to  get  us  something  together.  I  've  told  him 
you  '11  stay  with  him— though  I  'II  go  on  the  road  if 
I  can  get  a  part.  He  's  put  us  down  for  an  English 
thing  they  're  going  to  begin  rehearsing  next  week. ' ' 

That,  Don  felt,  would  be  the  beginning  of  his  worldly 
progress;  the  rest  would  be  merely  a  matter  of  time. 
And  with  his  new  pseudo-scientific  theory  of  religion  to 
comfort  his  doubts,  his  future  began  to  regain  some  of 
the  tints  of  happiness — the  misty  blue  tints  of  distant 
peace.  The  figure  in  the  immediate  foreground  of  his 
outlook  was  still  Miss  Morris;  but  he  had  not  yet  had 
his  confessional  tete-a-tete  with  her,  because  she  gave 
him  no  opportunity  to  do  so.  She  carried  herself 
among  the  actors  on  the  street  as  if  she  were  ashamed 
of  being  seen  with  them ;  and  she  admitted  to  Don  that 
she  was  sorry  to  see  him  there.  Why?  "Because  you  '11 
never  make  a  success  of  acting,"  she  said.  "It  's 
absurd. ' '  He  tried  to  make  her  understand  that  he  was 
not  ambitious.  "Then  you  should  be,"  she  replied. 
"At  least  you  should  be  taking  up  some  work  that  you 
can  remain  in  all  your  life.  I  hope  you  don't  intend 
to  keep  at  this  sort  of  thing." 

"Why  not?" 


THE  IDEALIST  245 

She  turned  into  the  door  of  an  office  building  that 
was  full  of  theatrical  agencies.  "Well,"  she  said, 
curtly,  "I  supposed  that  you  intended,  some  day,  to 
settle  down." 

He  went  back  toward  his  room  undepressed  by  her 
criticism.  Evidently,  as  Walter  Pittsey  had  said,  she 
was  out  of  her  element.  She  should  have  remained  in 
Coulton,  teaching  in  her  sister 's  school,  if  settling  down 
made  up  her  idea  of  the  whole  end  and  object  of  life. 

He  hesitated  at  Madison  Square,  intending  to  sit 
under  the  trees  for  a  moment  and  think  it  all  over.  But 
he  remembered  that  he  had  left  the  breakfast  dishes 
unwashed  on  the  table;  and  it  had  been  his  turn,  that 
morning,  to  wash  up.  He  continued  down  Fifth 
Avenue,  in  the  scant  shade  of  mid-day,  tired  by  the 
heat  and  excitement  of  a  crowded  morning. 

As  he  ascended  the  stairs  to  his  rooms,  Bert  Pittsey 
called  over  the  railing:  "Is  that  you,  Don?" 

"Yes.  What  is  it?"  He  supposed  that  Pittsey 
wished  him  to  do  some  shopping  for  luncheon,  and  he 
waited  on  the  step.  Hearing  no  reply,  he  continued  his 
ascent;  and  as  he  approached  the  landing  on  which 
their  apartment  opened,  Pittsey  came  out — his  hat  in 
his  hand — and  whispered  as  he  escaped  past  him: 
"Your  father's  in  there.  Some  one  's  written  him  that 
you  're  gotng  on  the  stage. ' ' 

Don's  irresolution  carried  him  to  the  doorway.  His 
father  was  sitting  beside  the  dining  table;  it  was  cov 
ered  with  a  disorder  of  stale  food  and  dirty  dishes ;  and 
he  looked  strangely  out  of  place  and  as  if  degraded  by 


246  DON-A-DREAMS 

the  indignity  of  his  surroundings.  He  did  not  rise. 
At  Don 's  challenging  stare,  he  said :  ' '  Well,  come  in. ' ' 

Don  crossed  the  threshold.  His  father  scrutinized 
him  silently  as  if  trying  to  see  in  his  appearance  some 
indication  of  what  had  been  happening  to  him  in  New 
York.  He  was  pale,  shabby,  thin,  and  as  dumb  as  guilt. 

Mr.  Gregg  pushed  away  from  him  a  dish  of  half- 
eaten  porridge  that  had  turned  brown  in  its  milk.  He 
put  his  elbow  on  the  table  with  the  air  of  beginning  an 
examination.  "Your  mother  hears  that  you  are  going 
on  the  stage  ?  Is  this  true  ? ' ' 

Don  said,  thickly:  "Yes." 

Mr.  Gregg  raised  his  eyebrows.  "Do  you  find  that 
sort  of  life  particularly  inviting?" 

Don  shook  his  head.  "No." 

"You  do  it,  then,  because  you  feel  that  you  have 
great  dramatic  ability  ? ' ' 

But  this  sarcasm  made  Don  aware  that  he  was  being 
treated  as  a  child,  and  recovering  from  the  first  instinc 
tive  obedience  that  had  moved  his  tongue  in  spite  of 
himself,  he  refused  to  reply. 

Mr.  Gregg  went  on,  slowly:  "Or  is  it  because  the 
wages  are  so  high  for  beginners  ?  .  .  and  the  prospects 
of  advancement  so  alluring?" 

Don  looked  up  at  him  with  narrowed  eyes,  meditat 
ing  a  defiant  answer.  His  father  put  in,  quickly,  in 
another  tone :  ' '  Don 't  misunderstand  me,  now.  I  have 
not  come  here  to  find  fault  with  you.  I  merely  wish  to 
know  why  you  are  doing  it." 

"Because  there  's  nothing  else,"  he  replied  sullenly. 

His  father  refused  to  accept  the  challenge  of  his  man- 


THE  IDEALIST  247 

ner,  but  looked  down,  frowning,  at  the  bare  floor,  his 
eyes  concealed  by  his  heavy  grey  eyebrows.  "Surely 
you  don't  think  that?"  he  said.  "Surely  you  under 
stand  that  there  's  a  place  in  life  made  ready  for  you 
in  Coulton — that  there  's  honest  work  for  you  there, 
among  your  friends,  among  your  schoolmates,  with  a 
home  for  you  to  live  in — and  your  mother.  .  .  She 
has  not  had  a  happy  minute,  you  know,  since  you  left. ' ' 

Don  fumbled  with  his  hat;  this  manner  of  attack 
unnerved  him.  He  had  not  expected  gentleness. 

"I  don't  understand  you,"  Mr.  Gregg  continued.  "I 
have  never  professed  to.  I  had  to  leave  these  things  to 
your  mother.  But  I  have  never  been  consciously  unkind 
to  you.  I  have  tried  to  do  my  duty  to  you.  And  it 
seems  to  me  that  you  have  behaved  in  a  way  that  is 
cruel  to  your  mother  and  most  undutiful  to  me.  Why 
is  it?  Why  are  you  here?  What  is  it  you  wish  to  do 
with  your  life  ?  Surely,  as  your  parents,  we  are  entitled 
to  some  consideration — to  some  explanation." 

He  was  asking  for  a  confidence  which  he  should  never 
have  had  to  ask  for.  It  was  too  late.  It  was  too  late 
for  him  to  ask  from  the  young  man  what  he  had 
repelled  in  the  child  and  never  encouraged  in  the  boy. 
Don  struggled  with  himself  to  speak,  but  when  he 
raised  his  eyes  to  his  father,  he  saw  only  the  tyrant  of 
his  past,  now  impotent.  The  figure  of  oppression  had 
shrunken;  he  was  old  and  worried,  and  he  had  even  a 
provincial  appearance  in  his  lawyer's  frock  coat  and 
his  collar  that  was  out  of  style.  He  was  pathetic,  but  he 
was  not  lovable. 

Don  stammered:  "I  can't —  I  can't  explain." 


248  DON-A-DREAMS 

''Why  not?" 

"I  can't  go  back— that  's  all.    I  can't  go  back." 

"Why  not?" 

Don  shook  his  head,  his  face  averted.  There  was  a 
long  silence.  He  leaned  back  against  the  jamb  of  the 
door,  and  his  eyes  fell  on  a  frying  pan  that  was  on  the 
end  of  the  table.  The  bacon  fat  in  it  had  jellied  disgust 
ingly.  He  found  himself  wishing  that  he  had  washed 
up  before  his  father  came. 

Mr.  Gregg  continued :  "  I  came  down  with  your  uncle, 
who  is  taking  Conroy  home.  He  wished  you  to  return 
with  us.  Will  you  go  with  him — if  you  will  not  with 
me?"  When  he  received  no  answer,  he  said  more 
sharply:  "You  understand  that  he  will  not  assist  you 
to  remain  here.  Any  arrangement  which  he  made  with 
you  terminates  on  your  cousin's  leaving.  If  you  are 
determined  to  defy  us,  you  must  do  so  without  his  assis 
tance." 

Don  saw  and  despised  the  diplomacy  with  which  his 
father  had  manoeuvred  in  order  to  arrive  with  this  ulti 
matum.  He  said:  "He  has  n't  assisted  me." 

"Don't  lie,  sir!"    his  father  snapped. 

"I  don't  lie." 

"You  tell  a  falsehood!" 

"I  borrowed  money  from  him.     I—" 

"Exactly." 

"I  '11  pay  it  back." 

"No  doubt.  You  are  apparently"— He  glanced  at 
the  table— "living  in  luxury  here.  Have  you  earned  a 
single  penny  yet  ? ' ' 

Don  shut  his  lips.    He  felt  that  no  matter  what  a  son 


THE  IDEALIST  249 

of  his  had  done,  he  could  not  have  stung  him  with  such 
a  taunt  as  that.  And  his  tnought  showed  in  his  face. 

"Well,  then,"  his  father  cried,  "answer  me!  What 
do  you  hope  to  do  here?  Why  did  you  leave  college? 
Why  do  you  refuse  to  come  home  ?  Do  you  hear  ? ' '  He 
brought  his  fist  down  on  the  table  with  a  blow  that 
jarred  the  dishes.  "Answer  me!" 

Don  threw  out  a  hand  in  one  of  those  nervous  and  fu 
tile  gestures  that  were  characteristic  of  him.  "Because 
I  can't!  Because  I  won't!  Because  there  's  nothing 
there— the  life — nothing!  I  hate  it.  I  'd  die  first." 

The  lawyer  pointed  a  keen  finger  at  him.  "You  '11 
die  here — or  you  '11  do  worse.  You  've  been  here  now 
a  whole  summer,  and  you  're  no  farther  ahead  than  you 
were  the  day  you  came.  Don't  think  you  can  deceive 
me.  I  know  you.  You  're  as  foolish — as  unpractical— 
as  a  girl.  You  've  been  living  on  the  money  you  had 
from  your  aunt  and  your  uncle.  When  you  have  n't 
that — you  '11  have  nothing.  You  're  living  a  beggar's 
life  now,  and  you  refuse  to  come  home  because  there 
you  'd  have  to  work.  The  fear  of  work  drove  you  to 
college.  You  idled  for  a  whole  year,  and  when  your 
examinations  impended  you  ran  away.  You  're  a  lazy 
loafer.  You  '11  come  home  and  get  to  work — or  you  '11 
stay  here  and  starve.  Your  uncle  will  help  you  no 
more.  I  '11  see  to  that ! ' ' 

Don  swallowed,  white.  "Thanks.  If  you  won't  help 
me,  at  least  you  can — " 

' '  Help  you !    Help  you  to  what  ? ' ' 

He  threw  his  hat  on  the  table.  "I  don't  want  your 
help.  I  don't  want  anybody's  help.  I  'm  going  to  live 


250  DON-A-DREAMS 

my  life  in  my  own  way."  He  took  up  the  frying  pan 
and  the  coffee  pot  and  carried  them  into  the  kitchen. 
"Leave  me  alone;  that  's  all.  I  can  take  care  of  my 
self." 

He  began  to  clear  off  the  table,  filling  the  kettle  and 
making  the  dishes  ready  in  the  washpan.  He  was 
trembling  with  a  resentful  determination,  tall,  fragile, 
pitiful  in  this  ludicrous  occupation  of  scullion. 

When  he  went  into  the  kitchen,  his  father  wiped  his 
forehead,  his  eyes  wandering  over  the  poor  discom 
forts  of  the  room — which  he  had  thought  to  find  Don 
eager  to  leave — baffled,  but  still  resolved  to  take  the 
son  home  to  the  mother  and  save  him  from  this 
folly.  He  had  tried  sarcasm,  gentleness,  abuse  and 
anger ;  he  had  played  all  the  tricks  which  his  trade  uses 
to  draw  the  truth  from  the  witness  in  the  box !  and  as 
yet  he  did  not  even  understand  what  it  was  that  his  son 
was  concealing  from  him,  what  had  brought  the  boy 
here,  what  kept  him  here,  what  he  hoped  to  find  here 
that  he  could  not  find  at  home. 

He  lighted  a  cigar  which  he  had  accepted  from  his 
brother-in-law  on  their  railroad  journey  together;  and 
he  smoked  it  as  if  he  did  not  know  that  it  was  in  his 
mouth— his  eyes  darting  from  point  to  point  of  the  evi 
dence  which  he  had  gathered  from  Mr.  McLean,  from 
Pittsey  and  from  Don  himself — his  eyebrows  working 
— sometimes  shaking  his  head,  and  more  than  once  clos 
ing  his  hands  on  a  parental  impulse  to  thrash  the  young 
fool  into  submission  and  take  him  home  by  the  ear. 

Don  washed  and  dried  the  dishes,  emptied  the  water 
into  the  sink,  scoured  the  pan,  hung  up  the  dish  rag, 


THE  IDEALIST  251 

washed  his  hands,  and  at  last  had  no  further  excuse  to 
keep  him  from  the  dining-room. 

He  did  not  look  at  his  father.  He  filled  his  pipe  and 
sat  down  beside  the  window. 

"Well,"  Mr.  Gregg  said,  with  a  calculated  mildness, 
"if  you  are  going  to  stay  here,  will  you  tell  me  what 
you  intend  to  do?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"You  're  going  on  the  stage?" 

"Yes.    I  'm  going  on  the  stage." 

"As  your  life  work?" 

"I  suppose  so." 

"You  have  no  training  for  it." 

"No." 

"You  hope  to  succeed  at  it?" 

"I  don't  hope  to  succeed  very  well  at  anything." 

"Why  not?" 

"I  don't  care  whether  I  do  or  not." 

"You  don't  care  whether  you  succeed  or  not?" 

"No." 

"Why?" 

"There  are  other  things  in  life  more  important." 

"What  are  they?" 

"Oh,  you  know  them  as  well  as  I  do." 

Mr.  Gregg  studied  his  cigar  with  an  admirable  self- 
restraint.  "You  hope  to  marry,  I  suppose." 

"I  suppose  so." 

' '  To  support  your  wife  and  children  ? ' ' 

"I  suppose  so." 

"On  the  stage?" 

"Or  in  some  other  way." 


252  DON-A-DREAMS 

"You  have  n't  decided  how?" 

"No." 

"Do  you  appreciate  the  difficulty  of  making  an  hon 
est  living  for  a  wife  and  family  in  a  city  where  you 
have  no  friends,  no  relatives?  You  are  starting  out, 
here,  like  a  man  in  a  new  country,  and  you  are  leaving 
behind  you,  in  Coulton,  all  the  assistance  that  would 
make  the  way  easy  for  you. ' ' 

' '  I  understand  all  that.    I  can 't  go  back  to  Coulton. ' ' 

Mr.  Gregg  sprang  the  next  question  like  a  trap : 
"Who  is  the  young  woman?" 

Don  did  not  answer. 

"Is  it  Miss  Morris?" 

He  flushed  resentfully. 

"Do  you  think  she  would  sooner  have  you  on  the 
stage  than  in  some  honest  employment?  ...  Do 
you  think  she  would  be  happier  here  than  in  Coulton? 
.  .  .  Do  you?" 

Don  put  down  his  pipe  and  stood  up  to  face  his 
father.  "What  's  the  use?"  he  said  wildly.  "What  's 
the  use  of  all  this?  I  could  n't  make  you  understand 
if  we  were  to  keep  this  up  forever.  You  don't—  The 
things  that  are  important  to  you,  to  Coulton,  I  don't 
care  that  for. ' '  He  tossed  them  away  with  his  bony  hand. 
"The  things  that  make  up  my  life — if  I  were  to  tell 
you — you  'd  laugh  at  me.  Why  can't  you  leave  me 
alone  ?  Why  can 't  you  go  away  and  leave  me  alone  ? ' ' 

"Because,  unfortunately,  you  're  my  son.  Because 
your  mother  worries  herself  sick  about  you.  Because 
she  's  ill  and  weak,  and  this  is  killing  her.  Because" — 
He  raised  his  voice  in  a  trembling  passion — "you  owe 


THE  IDEALIST  253 

it  to  her,  you  ungrateful  dog,  to  go  back  there  and 
behave  yourself.  Do  you  think  I  care!  If  it 
were  n't  for  her—  God!  that  it  should  be  in 
your  power  to  make  a  woman  suffer,  and  lie 
sleepless,  and  watch  me  as  if  I  were  a  brute  that  had 
driven  you  out  of  the  house!"  He  clenched  his  hands, 
with  a  terrible  face.  ' '  You  callous  young  hound !  This 
is  the  important  thing  in  life !  To  make  every  one 
miserable  that  loves  you!  To  kill  the  mother  that 
almost  gave  her  life  for  you  once  already!  To  break 
up  the  home  that  sheltered  you !  Oh,  you  whelp ! 
You-" 

' '  Stop  ! ' '  Don  gasped.  The  horror  of  the  accusation 
was  more  than  he  could  bear  to  listen  to.  "I  won't — 
1  won 't — ' '  He  caught  up  his  hat  and  ran  to  the  door. 
"I  won't-" 

His  father  heard  him  slip  and  fall  on  the  stairs. 
He  stood  holding  to  the  table,  until  he  heard  nothing 
but  the  noises  from  the  street  echoing  in  a  dull  rumble 
in  the  air-court  outside  the  window.  Then  he  sat  down 
to  wait. 

Don  did  not  return. 

HE  did  not  return  until  late  at  night,  and  then  he  came 
limping,  to  find  Bert  Pittsey  sitting  alone  at  the  dining 
table  working  on  one  of  his  "specials."  Conroy  had 
packed  his  trunk  and  departed  with  his  father.  There 
had  been  no  messages  left  for  Don,  except  a  note  from 
his  uncle  enclosing  a  small  check  and  advising  him  to 
return  home. 

He  sat  down  to  write  a  letter  of  frantic  affection  to 


254  DON-A-DREAMS 

his  mother,  appealing  to  her  not  to  worry  about  him, 
exonerating  his  father  from  all  responsibility  for  his 
misbehaviour  and  promising  an  impossible  success  for 
himself  and  an  end  of  all  trouble  for  her  in  the  near 
future.  His  hand,  wet  with  perspiration,  stuck  to  the 
pages  as  his  pen  trembled  across  them. 

He  wrote  another  letter  to  his  uncle,  returning  the 
check  with  thanks.  He  ate  bread  and  butter  at  mid 
night,  chewing  mechanically,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  lamp ; 
and  then  he  went  to  his  bed,  alone,  abandoned,  with  a 
sinking  tremor  of  nervous  apprehension  that  lay  like  a 
nightmare  on  him  in  the  stifling  darkness  and  heat  of 
the  room. 


IX 


HE  woke  defiant.  He  ignored  the  implied  reprobation 
of  Bert  Pittsey 's  silence  concerning  Conroy's  depar 
ture,  although  he  knew  that  Pittsey  must  despise  him 
for  having  betrayed  Conroy  to  his  father.  He  ignored 
Conroy's  upbraidings,  received  in  a  letter  which  he 
destroyed  without  reply.  He  arranged  that  Walter 
Pittsey  should  take  the  vacant  share  in  the  apartment, 
and  made  no  explanation  to  his  friend,  although  he 
could  see  that  Walter  expected  one.  He  told  himself 
that  he  had  done  what  was  right;  and  he  did  not  care 
what  any  one  thought  of  it.  He  was  going  to  live  his 
own  life  in  his  own  way. 

In  that  mood  of  bitter  isolation,  a  letter  from  Mar 
garet  in  Leipzig,  came  to  him  like  a  message  of  affec- 


THE  IDEALIST  255 

tionate  trust,  although  there  was  nothing  in  it  but  her 
usual  friendship.  She  was  worried  by  the  fact  that  the 
failure  of  Mrs.  Richardson's  investments  had  forced 
them  to  practise  the  meanest  economies.  "I  shall  have 
to  earn  my  living  now,  without  joking.  Do  you  want 
any  more  music  lessons?  Do  you  remember  your  first 
one?  Are  you  keeping  up  your  practice?  Do  not  be 
surprised  if  you  see  me  in  New  York  suddenly,  because 
we  are  actually  afraid  of  being  left  here  without  money, 
so  far  from  home,  and  mother  is  tired  of  traveling  on 
nothing.  I  do  not  know  what  may  happen.  How  are 
you  getting  on  ?  Write  to  me  here. ' ' 

He  wrote  her  a  long  impassioned  reply  that  was  a 
sort  of  confession  of  faith  in  her  and  in  all  the  ideals 
which  he  associated  with  her  in  his  thoughts;  and  he 
went  to  his  rehearsals,  with  Walter  Pittsey,  in  the 
stilted  manner  of  a  martyr  who  has  been  fortified  by  a 
secret  communion  with  a  priest  of  his  religion. 

He  found  that  Miss  Morris  had  been  engaged  as  a 
"walking  lady"— an  "extra"  like  himself.  He  sup 
posed—from  the  way  in  which  she  avoided  him— that 
Walter  Pittsey  had  told  her  how  he  had  betrayed  his 
cousin. 

FOR  the  first  week,  of  course,  he  was  drilled  in  his  street 
clothes,  on  a  stripped  stage,  in  the  choking  twilight  of 
a  closed  theater,  suffering  all  the  indignities  of  being 
driven,  with  the  herd  of  "supers,"  by  a  raucous  stage 
manager  who  continually  exhorted  them  to  "put  more 
guts"  into  their  work— an  expression  which  revolted 
Don  like  an  indecency.  But  with  the  dress  rehearsal 


256  DON-A-DREAMS 

came  the  excitement  of  "making  up"  under  Pittsey's 
direction — for  Pittsey  was  acting  as  the  "head  of  the 
supers";  and  when  Don  had  put  on  the  top  hat,  the 
frock  coat  and  the  other  morning  wear  of  an  English 
gentleman  of  fashion  on  the  stage,  he  smiled  at  himself 
in  the  pier  glass  of  the  dressing  room,  stroking,  like 
a  dandy,  with  his  gloved  fingers,  the  gummed  moustache 
that  was  tickling  on  his  upper  lip.  For  the  first  time, 
the  element  of  "make-believe"  in  the  work  appealed  to 
him. 

Kidder,  the  agent— who  not  only  furnished  the  super 
numeraries  but  acted  as  a  sort  of  overseer  of  them  when 
they  were  not  on  the  stage— came  into  the  room  on  his 
round  of  the  theaters,  and  complimented  Don  on  his 
appearance.  "That  looks  well  on  you,"  he  said,  with 
intent  to  flatter;  for  in  his  business  of  supplying 
"extras,"  he  found  it  difficult  to  get  youths  of  Don's 
intelligence  and  more  difficult  still  to  retain  them.  His 
praise  was  sweet  to  Don ;  and  it  added  the  final  touch 
to  his  pleasure  to  find  himself  in  a  profession  where 
such  amenities  were  practised. 

He  raced  upstairs  after  Pittsey,  to  take  his  place 
among  those  others  who  were  to  represent  a  crowd  of 
promenaders  on  the  Strand,  in  the  first  scene 
of  the  play;  and  now  the  game  of  make-be 
lieve  was  gorgeously  colored  and  dazzlingly  alight. 
He  smiled  at  the  boys  in  their  grease-paint  that 
gave  them  the  complexion  of  young  Sioux,  and  at  the 
girls  in  their  rouge  that  added,  in  its  exaggeration  of 
unreality,  a  charm  of  something  romantic  to  their 
young  cheeks.  When  the  stage  manager  called :  ' '  Take 


THE  IDEALIST  257 

your  places.  Take  your  places!"— and  the  rehearsal 
began,— Don  sauntered  out  into  the  sunny  glare  of  the 
calcium  light  and  saw  Miss  Morris  coming  across  the 
boards  toward  him,  a  haughty  English  beauty  in  a 
summer  gown,  under  a  flowered  parasol.  He  raised 
his  hat  to  her,  smiling  gallantly. 

She  dropped  her  handkerchief,  startled  by  the  change 
which  the  grease  paint  and  the  false  moustache  and  the 
fine  clothes  had  made  in  him.  He  picked  it  up*  for  her, 
with  a  flourish.  He  shook  hands  with  her,  shoulder- 
high.  ' '  May  I  have  the  pleasure  of  a  turn  on  the  Strand 
with  you  ?  "  he  asked  gaily.  ' '  Most  certainly.  I  should 
be  delighted ! ' '  she  replied,  in  the  game ;  and  they 
returned  together  to  the  wings,  Miss  Morris  gone  ner 
vous  with  the  knowledge  that  the  stage  manager  had 
been  watching  their  by-play. 

"All  right,"  he  said  to  them  gruffly.  "Leave  that 
business  in.  It  '11  do.  Go  ahead."  He  called  to  the 
others:  "Not  so  fast  there.  This  's  no  foot  race." 

Pittsey  warned  them,  when  they  met  in  the  opposite 
wings:  "You  're  in  luck  that  he  did  n't  call  you  down. 
You  'd  better  not  put  in  anything  else  that  you  don't 
get  from  him." 

Don  slapped  his  leg  with  his  cane.  "Had  to  do  it," 
he  laughed.  "I  could  n't  leave  the  lady  to  pick  up  her 
own  handkerchief." 

But  he  did  almost  leave  it  to  her  to  pick  up,  on  the 
opening  night  of  the  play;  for  as  soon  as  he  stepped 
out  on  the  stage,  he  was  aware  that  the  footlights  stood 
at  the  mouth  of  a  black  cave  from  which  the  audience, 
like  some  huge  animal  with  a  thousand  pairs  of  eyes, 

17 


258  DON-A-DREAMS 

was  watching,  in  a  malevolent  silence,  every  movement 
of  the  actors ;  and  he  went  stiff  with  an  attack  of  stage 
fright.  Miss  Morris  steadied  him  with  a  cordial  clasp 
of  the  hand.  "It  's  all  right, ' '  she  said  under  her  voice. 
".No  one  is  looking  at  us,  you  know.  We  're  only  to  fill 
in  a  background.  You  turn  around  with  me."  He 
recovered  himself  as  soon  as  their  turning  brought  her 
between  him  and  the  audience.  He  laughed  at  himself 
when  they  reached  the  wings. 

The  scene  was  a  "box-set,"  representing  a  jewelry 
shop  with  stools  and  counters;  and  the  promenade  of 
supers  passed  across  an  opening  in  the  rear  wall  of  the 
' '  set, ' '  where  gaps  of  white  gauze  represented  the  plate 
glass  of  two  huge  display  windows  and  a  double  door. 
While  the  first  act  worked  itself  out,  in  the  loud  voices 
of  the  principal  actors  near  the  footlights,  Miss  Morris 
and  he  crossed  and  recrossed  the  windows  in  this  stream 
of  "extras,"  or  stood  chatting  with  Walter  Pittsey  in 
the  wings  until  it  should  be  their  turn  to  cross  again. 
Her  cheeks  were  flaming  with  rouge ;  her  eyebrows  were 
pencilled;  her  eyelashes  were  as  thick  as  black  pins 
with  "  cosmetique " ;  and  these  artificialities  gave  her 
beauty  a  coquettish  enticement  for  Don.  He  was  grate 
ful  to  her  for  having  held  him  up  when  he  had  faltered 
over  the  handkerchief.  She  smiled  and  chatted  rather 
archly,  enjoying  his  good  spirits  and  the  way  in  which 
his  eyes  clung  to  her,  admiringly. 

It  was  near  the  end  of  the  act  that  he  asked  her, 
apropos  of  nothing:  "By  the  way,  how  did  my  father 
know  I  had  met  you— here?" 

They  were  in  the  middle  of  their  passage  across  the 


THE  IDEALIST  259 

stage,  and  as  they  neared  the  wings  her  public  smile  of 
high  society  slowly  froze.  "Perhaps,"  she  said,  "be 
cause  I  wrote  my  sister  so." 

"Oh."  They  moved  into  the  shadow  behind  the 
reflector  of  the  calcium  light.  ' '  Did  you  tell  her  that  I 
was.  .  .  going  in  for  this  sort  of  thing?" 

There  was  a  note  of  defiance  in  her  flat  "Yes." 

He  stood  in  front  of  her,  studying  the  reflection  of 
that  tone  in  her  face.  He  hesitated  to  believe  what  it 
implied.  "She  must  have  told  him  so,"  he  suggested. 

"I  asked  her  to." 

"You—!" 

' '  I  wanted  them  to  stop  you, ' '  she  said,  uncompromis 
ingly.  "I  did  n't  think  you  should  do  it." 

He  did  not  reply.  She  opened  her  parasol,  prepara 
tory  to  taking  her  turn  again  in  the  promenade.  When 
she  looked  up  at  him,  she  found  him  smiling  doubtfully. 

"You  're  as  bad  as  I  am,"  he  said. 

She  did  not  understand  him,  being  ignorant  of  his 
affair  with  Conroy.  "I  beg—" 

They  were  interrupted  by  a  cry  down  the  stage— the 
cry  that  was  the  signal  for  all  the  street  crowd  to  rush 
to  the  windows  of  the  shop  and  gaze  in  at  an  actor 
who  was  shouting  ' '  Police  !  Thieves !  Police ! ' '  Don 
lost  her  in  the  jostle.  When  the  curtain  fell  on  the  act, 
he  went  downstairs  to  the  supers'  dressing  room,  with 
an  expression  of  face  that  puzzled  Walter  Pittsey. 

It  puzzled  Miss  Morris  even  more  when  he  joined  her 
in  the  background  of  the  next  scene;  and  his  amused 
explanation  that  her  treachery  relieved  him  of  the 
guilt  of  his  own  left  her  still  in  the  dark.  She  did  not 


260  DON-A-DEEAMS 

get  his  point  of  view.  While  he  was  telling  her  of  his 
quarrel  with  his  father,  she  took  his  father's  part 
against  him,  in  her  thoughts;  and  when  he  made  a 
clean  breast  of  his  betrayal  of  Conroy,  she  sympathized 
with  his  victim  and  blamed  him.  She  was  accustomed 
to  judge  actions  by  the  wisdom  and  justice  of  their 
results;  the  fact  that  he  considered  only  the  moral 
impulse  that  inspired  the  act  escaped  her.  She  was 
relieved  by  his  smiling  forgiveness  of  her  interference 
in  his  affairs,  but  she  did  not  see  why  this  interference 
should  draw  him  to  her. 

They  were  separated  by  the  movement  of  the  play  and 
did  not  meet  again  until  the  third  act,  set  to  represent 
an  English  lawn  party  in  which  they  safat  one  of  a 
number  of  rustic  tables  among  stage  trees.  It  was 
necessary  that  they  should  appear  to  be  engaged  in  an 
animated  conversation,  oblivious  to  the  actions  of  the 
principals  who  spoke  their  lines  in  the  foreground  of 
the  scene ;  and  she  asked  him  how  he  liked  his  new  pro 
fession  of  actor.  He  replied  that  he  liked  it  very  much 
— but  he  could  not  tell  why.  Certainly  it  would  enable 
him  to  live  without  borrowing.  He  was  to  be  paid  75 
cents  a  performance;  so  that,  with  the  two  mat 
inees,  he  would  receive  six  dollars  a  week.  He 
was  looking  around  for  something  to  do  in  the  idle 
mornings.  "At  any  rate,  it  's  better  than  boosting  on 
Bowery, ' '  he  said ;  and  he  proceeded  to  tell  her  of  that 
adventure. 

It  led  up  to  the  problems  which  he  had  discussed  with 
Walter  Pittsey  in  Central  Park,  and  thence  to  the  ques 
tion  of  religion  which  he  had  broached  with  her  on  the 


THE  IDEALIST  261 

veranda  of  the  cafe  at  Fort  George.  And  looking  out 
thoughtfully  at  the  actors  strutting  and  posturing 
against  the  glow  of  the  footlights,  he  tried  to  tell  her  of 
another  conclusion  which  had  come  to  him  in  his  soli 
tary  debates  with  himself. 

' '  Almost  the  first  thing  I  can  remember, ' '  he  said,  ' '  is 
the  Christmas  eve  when  I  found  out  that  there  was  no 
Santa  Claus.  I  don't  think— I  can't  tell  you  what 
a  shock  it  was."  He  smiled.  ''Nothing  that  has  hap 
pened  to  me  since — about  religion — hit  me  harder.  .  . 
But  don't  you  see  that  there  is  a  Santa  Claus!  He 
is  n't  a  man  in  a  fur  coat— and  a  reindeer  sleigh  and 
all  that — but  he  is  the  spirit  of  Christmas,  is  n't  he? 
They  've  personified  that,  and  made  a  saint  of  him,  and 
invented  legends  about  him— for  the  children— but 
when  we  're  no  longer  children,  and  don't  believe  in 
him,  we  still  have  that  Christmas  spirit — and  it  's  that 
that  gives  presents  and  makes  us  feel  kindly  towards 
one  another,  and  makes  Christmas  what  it  is.  .  .  Is  n't 
it  ?  .  .  .  Well,  that  's  the  way  it  is  about  these  other 
things.  They  're  true — if  they  're  not  true  in  the  way 
we  used  to  think  they  were." 

She  nodded,  somewhat  nervously.  She  felt  the 
absurdity  of  such  a  conversation  in  such  surroundings, 
and  she  was  afraid  that  someone  might  overhear  it. 
She  was  relieved  when  the  stage  dialogue  gave  them  the 
cue  to  retire  into  the  wings,  where  they  parted. 

NEVERTHELESS,  she  admired  in  him  this  almost  ludi 
crous  earnestness,  as  one  admires  in  another  a  quality 
which  shame  conceals  in  oneself.  She  gave  up  her 


262  DON-A-DREAMS 

attempts  to  inspire  him  with  her  own  aversion  for  the 
stage ;  and  seeing  the  childish  pleasure  which  he  had  in 
his  work,  she  tried  to  help  him  by  her  criticisms  and 
her  counsel.  She  had  been  trained  in  a  "dramatic 
school,"  and  she  endeavored  to  give  him  the  benefit  of 
that  training  in  her  advice.  She  found,  to  her  greater 
bewilderment,  that  he  did  not  wish  to  be  an  actor ;  that 
the  very  thought  of  coming  out  before  the  opera  glasses 
and  mimicking  love  or  grief  or  any  of  his  private  emo 
tions,  was  enough  to  make  him  blush.  "I  could  n't," 
he  said.  "Really—  I  know  I  could  n't."  It  was  rather 
a  joke  to  masquerade,  unknown  to  the  public,  in  the 
ranks  of  the  silent;  but  imagine—  He  looked  out  at  the 
leading  man  making  stage  love  to  the  leading  woman  in 
a  voice  to  reach  the  galleries. —  Imagine  him  doing  that ! 

"Well,  for  goodness'  sake,"  she  said,  "what  do  you 
want  to  do ?  And  why  don't  you  find  out,  and  go  ahead 
and  do  it?" 

"I  am.    I  want  to  live.    And  I  am  living." 

"That  's  all  very  well  for  the  present — but  what 
about  your  future?  You  don't  intend  to  be  a  super  all 
your  life?" 

"I  don't  intend  anything,  any  more,"  he  replied  con 
tentedly.  "I  'in  tired  of  planning  futures  that  never 
work  out.  Things  will  develop  in  their  own  way.  I  'm 
not  troubling  about  them." 

She  turned  £,way  from  him  with  a  gesture  of  exas 
peration  which  he  did  not  understand;  and  she  went 
from  him  to  Pittsey  who  had  been  watching  Don  and 
her  together  with  the  mild  curiosity  that  was  natural 
to  him. 


THE  IDEALIST  263 

He  had  been  wondering  why  she  remained  so  long  an 
"extra"  in  this  company,  instead  of  finding  a  better 
engagement  with  some  other,  now  that  the  season  had 
well  begun  and  all  the  stages  were  busy.  When  he 
asked  her  whether  she  had  any  prospect  of  a  "part," 
she  answered,  languidly,  "No,"— as  if  she  had  lost  her 
interest  and  her  ambition.  He  had  learned — from  Miss 
Arden— that  she  was  eking  out  her  small  salary  by  pos 
ing  during  the  day,  in  costume,  for  magazine  illus 
trators.  He  had  learned  also  that  she  and  Don  had 
made  a  morning  excursion  together  to  the  Bronx.  And 
when  he  tried  to  rouse  her  from  the  indifferent  silence 
which  she  maintained  with  him,  he  found  that  she 
responded  most  readily  to  talk  of  Don. 

"You  used  to  know  him,  in  Canada,  did  n't  you?" 

"Yes,"  sh!e  said,  "I  Ve  known  him  since  the  first 
day  he  came  to  school — a  little  fellow  in  black- velvet 
knickerbockers— and  a  Scotch  cap.  When  my  sister 
introduced  him  to  me,  he  said  'How  do  you  do?'  with 
a  little  old-fashioned  bow  that  impressed  me  so  much 
I  Ve  never  forgotten  it.  I  could  n't  open  my  mouth  to 
him  after  that. ' ' 

When  Pittsey  spoke  of  the  pleasure  which  Don 
seemed  to  find  in  his  "suping,"  she  replied:  "He  ought 
to  make  an  actor.  I  remember  at  school  once,  in  the 
winter,  he  pretended  he  was  dead  and  the  boys 
buried  him  in  a  snow  bank.  They  almost  smothered 
him.  And  how  I  cried  when  I  saw  them  doing  it !  ... 
He  was  sent  home  for  having  snow  down  his  neck  and 
up  his  sleeves  and  in  his  ears." 

She  relapsed  into  a  sort  of  staring  meditation.     He 


264  DON-A-DREAMS 

did  not  break  in  upon  it,  a  little  ashamed  of  having 
gone  about  to  spy  on  her  secret. 


ON  the  forenoon  of  the  following  Sunday— a  fresh 
September  morning  that  came  cool  at  the  end  of  a  hot 
week — Don  and  she  rode  to  Central  Park  together,  on 
top  of  a  Fifth  Avenue  stage.  The  street  was  busy  with 
its  "church  parade,"  with  its  holiday  traffic,  with  its 
throngs  of  sightseers  and  visitors  to  town ;  the  bus  was 
as  crowded  as  an  excursion  boat;  and  the  wind  that 
blew  down  the  clean  pavement — newly  washed  with 
rain— floated  the  lashes  of  the  cabbies'  whfps,  fluttered 
laces  and  feathers  and  the  extravagant  veils  of  "Fall 
millinery,"  tossed  black  coat-tails,  caught  at  top  hats, 
and  moulded  over  feminine  small  knees  the  flowing 
draperies  of  clinging  skirts.  Under  the  glinting  sun 
light,  it  gave  movement  and  animation  to  the  solemnity 
of  Sunday  finery  and  curiosity 's  slow  stare.  It  sparkled 
like  a  breeze  on  water.  It  rocked  the  church  bells  in  a 
continuous  chime. 

She  leaned  back  against  the  back  of  their  seat,  look 
ing  down  on  the  bravery  of  fashion  inscrutably,  her 
face  made  more  beautiful  by  the  softening  blur  of  her 
brown  veil.  Don  clung  to  his  perch,  bending  forward, 
in  all  ungraceful  angles,  his  head  continually  turning, 
and  clutching  at  his  hat.  The  hollow  rumble  of  the  bus 
axles,  jolting  in  their  hubs,  thrilled  him  with  the  return 


THE  IDEALIST  265 

of  a  childish  excitement ;  for  it  was  the  sound  that  the 
circus  wagons  had  made,  passing  in  a  street  parade 
which  he  had  seen  when  he  had  been  no  taller  than  the 
glittering  spokes  of  the  gilded  wagon  wheels.  And 
although  he  did  not  recall  any  conscious  memory  of 
that  gala  day,  the  magic  of  the  sound  made  the  world 
poetical  again,  made  every  woman's  face  beautiful  to 
him,  every  couple  in  a  hansom  cab  a  pair  of  smiling 
lovers,  every  glimpse  of  the  lives  around  him  the  entic 
ing  illustration  of  a  story-book  of  romances  of  which 
the  pages  were  being  turned  so  rapidly  that  he  could 
not  read. 

"This  is  the  way  /  'd  like  to  go  through  life,"  he 
cried.  "Would  n't  you?"  And  when  she  did  not  seem 
to  understand,  he  explained,  with  a  wave  of  the  hand : 
"Up  above  it  all,  where  nobody  notices  you— looking 
down  at  it  as  you  go  by." 

She  nodded,  content  to  humour  him  in  whatever  he 
said. 

"I  would  n't  like  to  climb  down  into  it — even  into 
one  of  those  carriages. ' '  A  liveried  coachman  and  foot 
man,  like  sentinels  on  their  box,  drove  past  with  a  bored 
couple  in  an  open  landau.  "Imagine  living  under 
guard,  like  that!"  he  laughed.  A  butler  stood  at  atten 
tion  beside  a  door  which  he  had  opened  for  an  old  lady 
whom  a  footman  was  escorting  solemnly  down  the  steps. 
"'In  a  brownstone  prison  like  that!"  An  automobile 
came  slowly  toward  them,  quivering  impatiently  with 
the  pulse  of  its  checked  engine,  crawling  among  the 
cabs  and  carriages,  a  stout  man  beside  the  chauffeur 
shaking  corpulently  with  the  vibration  of  the  machine. 


266  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Though  I  should  rather  like  that!"  The  man  looked 
up  at  the  roof  seats  of  the  stage,  as  if  in  a  habit  of  obser 
vation  which  nothing  escaped ;  and  for  the  appreciable 
moment  of*  passing,  Don  returned  a  stare  that  seemed 
suddenly  to  focus  on  him,  and  stay  set,  as  if  waiting  for 
a  nod  of  recognition. 

The  machine  shot  forward  into  an  opening  between 
the  two  streams  of  carriages ;  the  man,  still  staring,  dis 
appeared  with  a  backward  jerk  of  the  head  that  brought 
his  hand  up  to  the  brim  of  his  hat.  Don  said:  "He 
thought  he  knew  me ! "  But  as  soon  as  he  had  said  it, 
he  saw  that  it  had  been  she  at  whom  the  stare  had  been 
directed;  and  he  saw,  too,  that  the  recognition 
had  not  been  welcome.  He  scrutinized  the  mem 
ory  of  the  man's  face— a  clean-shaven  plump 
face  with  protruding  eyeballs  that  were  round 
under  skinny  eyelids,  like  a  bird's.  He  wondered 
to  what  scenes  of  her  unknown  past  this  unexpected 
apparition  belonged. 

She  did  not  speak.  He  felt  that  she  was  separated 
from  him  by  her  thoughts,  and  he  amused  himself  with 
the  faces  he  saw  and  the  houses  he  passed,— wilfully 
fixing  his  attention,  with  a  microscopic  intensity,  on  the 
intricate  design  of  a  lace  curtain  in  a  window,  on  the 
twisted  scroll-work  of  an  iron  gate,  on  a  child  in  a  blue 
reefer  and  brown  leather  gaiters,  on  a  policeman  with 
a  swollen  nose  that  shone  in  the  sunlight— picking  out 
details  as  if  with  a  search-light  and  seeing  them  so 
brilliantly  that  it  seemed  he  had  never  seen  such  things 
before.  This  game  carried  him  to  the  end  of  their  ride ; 
and  when  they  had  climbed  down  from  the  driver 's  box, 


THE  IDEALIST  267 

over  the  rim  and  hub  of  the  wheel,  he  stood  beside  her 
on  the  curbstone,  stiff,  and  with  a  strange  sensation  of 
having  lost  his  outlook  and  reduced  his  height.  He 
looked  down  at  his  legs.  ' '  They  feel  so  short, ' '  he  said. 
' '  I  feel  as  if  I  had  been  cut  off  at  the  knees. ' ' 

When  he  returned  his  thoughts  to  her,  a  little  ashamed 
of  his  whimsicality,  he  found  her  drawn  back  from  the 
approach  of  an  automobile  in  which  he  recognized  the 
man  who  had  stared  at  her.  The  chauffeur  stopped  the 
machine  beside  them.  The  man  raised  his  hat,  smiling 
familiarly.  "Jump  in  and  have  a  ride." 

She  replied,  in  her  coldest  tones:  "No,  thank  you." 
.  "What  are  you  doing  now?" 

"Mr.  Gregg,"  she  said,  "this  is  Mr.  Polk." 

Polk  merely  nodded.  "Yes.  How  d'  you  do?"  He 
passed  his  eyes  over  Don — from  the  faded  band  of  his 
hat  to  the  worn  hem  of  his  trouser  legs — with  the  same 
absent-minded  observation  which  Don  had  noticed  in 
him  before.  He  said:  "Been  in  to  see  Jimmy  lately? 
He  's  making  up  a  couple  of  road  companies.  How  've 
you  been,  eh?  You  're  looking  tip-top." 

"Mr.  Gregg  is  from  Canada,  too,"  she  said,  turning 
to  Don  with  the  politest  smile. 

"On  the  stage?" 

"Yes.  It  was  such  a  beautiful  morning  we  could  n't 
resist  the  top  seat  on  it. ' ' 

Polk  blinked  rapidly.  "Oh?  Yes.  Well-  Go  ahead, 
Jack.  See  you  later." 

The  automobile  coughed,  exploded  and  kicked  for 
ward  with  a  jerk.  Polk  waved  his  hand  indifferently — 
and  was  gone  again. 


268  DON-A-DREAMS 

Don  looked  after  him,  bewildered  by  this  unexpected 
arrival,  this  absurd  conversation  and  this  abrupt  depar 
ture.  ' '  Why !  .  .  He  must  have  followed  us ! " 

"This  is  our  gate,  is  n't  it?"  She  stepped  down  into 
the  roadway.  "Is  the  Museum  open  on  Sunday  morn 
ings?" 

He  followed  her.  "Who  is  he?" 

"Peter  Polk." 

Don  had  seen  the  name  on  the  bill  boards.  ' '  The  play- 
writer?" 

' '  If  you  wish  to  call  them  plays. ' ' 

"You  Ve— " 

She  interrupted:  "I  would  sooner  talk  of  something 
pleasant — if  you  don't  mind."  As  they  turned  into  a 
by-path,  she  added  apologetically:  "I  don't  want  the 
thought  of  him  to  spoil  our  morning."  She  raised  her 
veil,  tying  it  around  the  crown  of  her  hat,  took  off  her 
gloves,  tucked  them  into  her  belt  and  opened  her  para 
sol  over  herself  and  Don  as  if  deliberately  conferring  on 
him  the  intimacy  of  smiles  and  friendship  which  she 
had  refused  to  Polk.  "Is  n't  this  jolly!" 

SHE  was  strikingly  dressed  in  shades  of  brown— even 
to  her  parasol,  her  veil  and  her  russet  shoes — and  every 
passer-by  paid  her  the  tribute  of  an  admiring  stare.  She 
appeared  so  unconscious  of  this  that  Don  was  free  to 
enjoy  it  for  her,  to  be  flattered  for  her,  and  to  enjoy 
also  the  feeling  it  gave  him  of  passing,  distinguished 
but  indifferent,  above  the  gaze  of  the  world.  With  the 
graceful  carriage  of  a  stage  beauty,  she  walked  untir 
ingly,  through  the  shady  windings  of  the  paths,  under 
tall  elms,  among  grey  beeches  of  which  the  leaves  were 


THE  IDEALIST  269 

yellowing,  between  the  reddening  hedges  of  underbrush 
from  which  the  squirrels  peeped.  She  was  amused  by 
his  knowledge  of  the  paths  to  be  taken.  She  admired 
every  little  view  of  wood  and  water  which  he  pointed 
out.  She  gave  herself  up  to  the  simple  pleasures  of  the 
moment  with  a  charming  unreserve  that  was  like  a  con 
tinual  compliment  to  him. 

He  had  never  seen  her  so  light-hearted  before,  and 
never  so  uncritically  friendly  in  her  acceptance  of  his 
opinions  and  his  points  of  view.  Although  she  said 
nothing  of  that  part  of  her  life  to  which  Polk  belonged, 
she  recalled  almost  wistfully  her  past  in  Coulton, 
including  Don  in  her  memories  and  astonishing  him 
again  by  the  vividness  of  her  recollection  of  his  small 
doings.  She  had  been  in  that  photograph  of  the  Sun 
day  school  picnic  in  which  he  had  been  posed  among  so 
many  little  girls  that  "Miss  Margaret"  had  been  jeal 
ous  of  them ;  she  remembered,  from  the  teasing  he  had 
suffered  in  school,  how  he  had  given  that  picture  to  a 
girl  who  had  destroyed  it;  and  she  confessed  that  she 
had  hated  ' '  the  little  wretch. ' '  When  he  was  somewhat 
blushingly  surprised  that  she  had  been  so  interested  in 
him,  even  so  long  ago,  she  said : ' '  Oh,  Edith  used  to  come 
home  and  talk  at  the  table  about  the  queer  little  boy  she 
was  teaching.  I  knew  all  about  you  long  before  I  ever 
met  you.  We  used  to  wonder  what  you  would  be  when 
you  grew  up." 

"I  'm  afraid.     .     .     I  'm  rather  a  disappointment." 

"You  are— in  some  ways,"  she  replied  lightly.  "In 
other  ways  you  're  not. ' ' 

"What  ways?" 

"Oh,  now,"  she  laughed,  "that  would  be  telling." 


270  DON-4-DREAMS 

He  joined  in  her  amusement.  "I  know,"  he  said, 
"I  'm  an  awful  ass.  I  've  tried  to  change— really,  I 
have— but  I  can't  do  it.  I  wake  up  next  morning  and 
find  myself  back  where  I  began.  Your  sister— my 
father — Bert  Pittsey — everyone  has  tried  to  help  me, 
but  they  can't.  I  '11  get  into  trouble,  some  day,  I 
know. ' ' 

"We  all  do  that." 

"Yes,  but  you  try  to  avoid  it.  I  seem  to  walk  right 
into  it  with  my  eyes  shut. ' ' 

"Never  mind.    Don't  let  us  worry  about  it." 
"  I  don 't ! "  he  said.    ' '  That  's  the  trouble ! ' ' 
"Well,"  she  sighed,  "some  days  I  think  you  're  right. 
You  are  on  a  morning  like  this,  anyway ! ' ' 

SHE  even  accepted  his  invitation  to  have  luncheon  at 
the  ' '  Terrace, ' '  and  protected  him  from  extravagance 
by  giving  a  ridiculous  order  of  oysters  and  ice-cream — 
making  a  joke  of  it,  enjoying  with  him  the  amazement 
of  the  waiter,  ignoring  the  curiosity  of  the  people  about 
her  and  devoting  her  eyes  to  Don  as  if  they  two  were 
alone  in  a  solitary  holiday  of  sunshine  and  autumn 
trees.  . .  - 

•' '  Now  what  shall  we  do  ?"  he  asked,  while  the  waiter 
was  gone  for  his  change. 

"Get  a  package  of  cigarettes,"  she  whispered,  as  if 
proposing  a  forbidden  wickedness, ' '  and  we  '11  go  where 
you  can  have  a  quiet  smoke." 

He  laughed.  "I  know  the  very  place!— as  good  as  a 
hay-loft!" 

It  was  around  an  arm  of  the  lake,  at  the  foot  of  an 
unfrequented  path  that  led  to  the  water's  edge  and 


THE  IDEALIST  271 

ended  beside  a  clump  of  syringa  bushes  and  a  rustic 
bench.  ' '  The  very  place, ' '  she  agreed.  ' '  Is  n  't  it  lovely 
to  be  out  among  real  trees,  instead  of  painted  stage  imi 
tations  !  And  the  ducks,  too ! ' '  She  sat  down,  making 
herself  comfortable,  as  if  for  a  long  tete-a-tete.  ''Now 
light  up  and  talk  to  me.  .  .  Tell  me—  Tell  me  why 
you  left  college  ? ' ' 

She  turned  toward  him,  sideways  in  the  seat,  her 
back  against  the  arm  of  it,  studying  him  unobserved, 
with  an  expression  of  face  that  might  have  put  him  on 
his  guard  if  he  had  seen  it. 

He  drew  the  first  contented  puffs  of  his  cigarette  and 
replied:  "I  don't  believe  I  can.  It  was  all  mixed  up. 
I  felt  I  was  wasting  my  time  there.  I  wanted  to  be  at 
work.  Conroy  and  Pittsey  were  leaving  together,  com 
ing  to  New  York.  I  had  quarreled  with  my  father  about 
not  studying  law.  Then  besides—"  He  stopped,  con 
fused.  "There  were  other  things.  I  thought  someone 
—  Oh,  I  could  n't  tell  you.  It  was  all  mixed  up.  I 
misunderstood,  I  guess.  I  made  a  mistake." 

At  his  "I  thought  someone" — her  eyes  widened  on 
him,  unwinking,  with  the  almost  painful  eagerness  of 
a  sportsman  who  has  seen  the  stirring  of  his  game.  She 
waited  so. 

He  smoked  in  a  silent  embarrassment  that  was,  in 
itself,  a  confession  of  the  truth.  He  was  thinking  of 
that  parting  on  the  steps  of  the  Kimball  porch,  of  his 
blank  despair,  and  of  Margaret  sobbing  in  the  dark 
ness. 

She  said,  at  last:  "Your  father  did  n't  wish  to  send 
you  to  college,  did  he  ?  " 

"No.     .     .     I  had  failed  on  my  entrance  exams." 


272  DON-A-DREAMS 

"I  remember.  .  .  Yes.  That  was  the  spring  that 
Miss —  What  was  her  name? —  I  remember  seeing  you, 
often,  on  Park  street  with  her. ' ' 

"Miss  Richardson!" 

She  did  not  appear  to  notice  his  surprise.  She  seemed 
indifferently  interested  in  the  toe  of  her  shoe,  which 
she  was  prodding  with  the  point  of  her  parasol.  ' '  What 
became  of  her?" 

"She  's  in  Germany— studying  music.  Did  you 
know  her?" 

"No.  I  knew  the  family  she  was  stopping  with— 
next  door  to  your  aunt's.  .  .  Is  she  going  to  be 
abroad  long?" 

"I — I  don't  know.  I  suppose  so.  If  they  can  stay. 
I  think  they  've  been  rather  unfortunate— about 
money." 

She  said  gently:  "She  seemed  such  a  sweet  girl." 

She  raised  to  him  again  that  penetrating  and  watch 
ful  scrutiny.  -He  was  unaware  of  it,  gazing  out  at  the 
water.  Her  tone,  as  if  speaking  only  of  the  past — 
"She  was  such  a  sweet  girl"— had  recalled  to  him  all 
the  dear  tremors  of  those  days  that  seemed  so  far  away, 
that  were  so  hopelessly  ended.  In  a  flash  of  thought, 
he  saw  himself,  now,  drifting  in  a  life  that  promised 
him  no  future,  a  "super,"  earning  75  cents  a  night, 
without  any  prospect  of  advancement  and  resigned  to 
his  failure  in  this  city  that  had  no  work  for  him.  The 
interval  that  had  passed  since  he  had  left  her,  had  not 
brought  them  nearer  together;  it  had  separated  them 
by  every  unsuccessful  effort  that  he  had  made  to  earn 
the  right  to  love  her.  He  saw  her  as  the  impossible 
prize  of  a  contest  in  which  he  had  been  a  loser.  He  saw 


THE  IDEALIST  273 

her,  surrounded  by  a  light  of  lost  dreams,  immeas 
urably  beyond  him,  a  hope  that  was  past. 

His  face  twitched  with  a  twinge  that  seemed  to  strike 
from  his  heart.  To  Miss  Morris,  it  was  the  face  of  a 
boy  who  had  been  disappointed  in  love,  who  had  thrown 
away  his  career  and  left  college  because  ' '  someone ' '  had 
taken  the  young  hope  out  of  his  future  and  left  him 
merely  "living  now" — as  he  had  said — without  plan, 
without  ambition.  She  smiled,  but  tenderly,  at  the 
folly  of  it.  How  like  him  it  was! 

He  was  startled  by  the  touch  of  her  hand  on  his  arm 
—the  hand  in  which  she  held  her  gloves.  He  thought 
that  she  was  giving  them  to  him,  and  he  took  them 
absent-mindedly.  "Put  them  in  your  pocket  for  me," 
she  said.  "I  'm  afraid  I  '11  lose  them." 

He  wondered  why  she  was  blushing. 

HE  was  to  wonder  at  her  again  when  they  parted  at 
the  door  of  Mrs.  Kahrle's  boarding-house.  "I  've  had 
such  a  good  time,"  she  said.  "Have  youl  Have  you 
been  happy?"  And  when  he  assured  her  that  he  had 
been,  she  added:  "That  's  good.  I  enjoyed  myself 
so  much."  She  shook  hands,  lingering  with  a  manner 
of  having  something  still  unspoken.  "Don't  worry— 
about  things— you  know.  They  '11  all  come  out  right, 
won't  they?" 

' '  I  hope  so, ' '  he  replied,  puzzled. 

' f  That  's  right, ' '  she  said.  ' '  Good-bye. ' '  Her  smile 
dwelt  on  him  as  if  she  were  trying  to  say  with  her  eyes 
some  encouragement  which  she  had,  apparently,  not 
put  into  words.  "Good-bye — till  to-morrow." 

18 


274  DON-A-DKEAMS 


XI 


HE  did  not  try  to  understand  what  it  was  that  lay  glim 
mering  at  the  bottom  of  that  deep  look  of  hers.  Her 
talk  of  Coulton  and  of  "Miss  Richardson"  had  put 
before  him  a  whole  picture  of  his  life,  from  the  days 
when  he  had  played  with  little  "Miss  Margaret"  in  the 
broken  summer-house,  down  to  the  last  written  words 
which  he  had  received  from  her  in  Leipzig ;  and  he  went 
back  over  it  all,  incident  by  incident,  and  chapter  by 
chapter,  as  if  it  were  a  printed  story  of  which  he  had 
yet  to  read  the  end.  Was  it  possible  that,  so  far  as  she 
was  concerned,  it  was  already  ended?  Was  she  gone 
out  of  his  life  forever  ?  Was  his  future  to  be  a  disjoined 
series  of  new  incidents  to  which  she  would  be  a 
stranger  ? 

He  revolted  against  the  thought  as  if  against  a 
change  in  his  own  identity.  Surely  love  could  not  be 
such  an  impotent  tragedy.  Surely  he  was  not  wrecked 
here  in  a  life  that  had  settled  down  to  mere  aimless 
regret.  Surely  it  was  a  very  law  of  existence  that  his 
future  should  be  a  development  of  his  past.  He  said 
to  himself  that  it  must  be  so,  that  it  should  be  so,  that 
he  would  make  it  so.  With  a  determined  effort  he 
threw  off  the  depression  that  had  fastened  on  him ;  and 
by  a  trick  of  imagination  he  made  himself  feel  a  confi 
dent  expectation  that  Margaret  would  come  back  to  him 
and  that  his  life  would  continue  to  fulfil  the  promise 
with  which  it  had  begun. 

When  he  returned  to  his  rooms,  both  the  Pittseys  were 


THE  IDEALIST  275 

out,  and  he  opened  his  trunk  and  began  to  re-read  his 
collection  of  her  letters,  brooding  over  them  fondly  and 
striving  to  recall  every  detail  of  this  past  that  had 
threatened  to  escape  him.  He  opened  the  back  of  his 
watchcase,  to  find  that  her  face  was  almost  lost  in  the 
lustrous  brown  of  the  "unfixed"  proof,  as  if  it,  too, 
were  trying  to  fade  away  from  him !  And  he  sat  gazing 
at  it — in  an  attempt  to  stamp  it  forever  on  the  memory 
of  his  retina— until  the  light  had  quite  obliterated  it. 
Then  he  closed  his  eyes  and  smiled  when  he  saw  the 
after-image  of  her  face,  glancing  aside  in  the  pose  of 
girlish  shyness  which  he  loved.  That  picture  should 
never  fade.  He  would  summon  it  back  every  hour  of 
the  day,  so  that  it  might  be  glowing  in  the  darkness 
when  he  gave  himself  up  to  the  last  sleepy  thoughts  of 
her  at  night. 

She  would  return  to  him  from  Europe ;  he  would  be 
waiting,  ready  for  her,  in  some  position  which  should 
not  be  unworthy  of  her;  their  lives  would  join  in  a 
happy  completion  of  the  destiny  foreshadowed  by  their 
past.  Of  that  he  made  himself  feel  sure.  For  he  was 
not  merely  an  unconscious  idealist,  now ;  he  was  becom 
ing  a  visionary.  He  not  only  believed  in  what  was  the 
unsupported  tissue  of  his  hope ;  he  was  making  the  hope 
itself  and  then  believing  in  it. 

IT  occurred  to  him — when  he  met  Miss  Morris  on  the 
stage  again,  and  was  greeted  by  her  with  an  almost 
eager  smile — that  she  had  just  such  a  confidence  in  him, 
and  that  she  had  intended  to  let  him  know  as  much  in 
her  parting  from  him  on  Sunday  afternoon.  He  felt 
that  he  had  shared  his  past  with  her;  that  she  had 


276  DON-A-DREAMS 

watched  him  always  with  interest;  and  that  she 
believed  in  him  still. 

"Well,  what  have  you  been  doing?"  she  asked,  as 
soon  as  they  were  paired  off  in  their  promenade. 

"I  've  been  making  plans. ' ' 

' '  Have  you  ?    What  sort  ? ' ' 

"Why— I  feel  that  I  've  been  drifting.  I  've  been 
trying  to  take  a  course  again,  and  sail  it." 

She  said,  feelingly :  ' '  Oh,  I  'm  so  glad !  What  have 
you  decided  to  do?" 

She  surprised  him  by  the  warmth  of  her  curiosity, 
questioning  him  with  an  eagerness  that  had  an  air  of 
triumph,  as  if  she  had  tried  to  awaken  his  ambition  and 
was  flattered  by  her  success.  He  guessed  that  she  too 
had  been  planning  for  him;  and  he  said:  "I  have  n't 
found  out.  Tell  me — can't  you  suggest  something?" 

"Oh,  a  thousand  things!"  She  laughed.  "For 
instance,  here  you  are,  behind  the  scenes,  watching  the 
machinery  of  a  play — with  a  college  education  and  lots 
of  imagination,  I  know.  Why  don't  you  begin  to  write 
plays?" 

"Like  Peter  Polk?"  he  joked. 

She  winced.    ' '  Please— Please— ' ' 

' '  I  beg  your  pardon.     .     .    Do  you  really  mean  it  ? " 

"Most  certainly.  Why  not?  You  could  act,  if  you 
would  let  yourself — but  if  you  don't  want  to  come  out 
and  'read'  lines  yourself,  you  certainly  can't  object  to 
writing  them  for  others.  And  I  'm  sure  you  could  do 
it." 

He  trussed  himself  up  with  his  cane,  holding  it  across 
his  back  in  the  crooks  of  his  elbows,  and  frowning  out 


THE  IDEALIST  277 

at  the  parade  of  supers  in  the  calcium  light.  ' '  I  tried  to 
write— newspaper  stuff— for  Bert  Pittsey.  And  I 
could  n't  do  it  at  all." 

' '  Newspaper  stuff ! ' '  she  said  contemptuously.  ' '  No ! 
But  surely  you  could  write  the  dialogue  of  a  play. 
Look  at  that  Polk.  He  can  hardly  write  a  readable  letter. 
But  he  knows  how  people  talk,  and  he  knows  how  to 
put  them  on  the  stage." 

He  looked  around  at  her  in  sudden  surprise.  "Do 
you  know, "  he  said, ' '  I  believe  I  could !  I  used  to  make 
them  up— plays— for  figures  cut  out  of  pictures— pic 
tures  from  the  old  'Graphic'— long  ago.  Would  n't 
it  be  fun!— if  I  could!" 

She  touched  him  on  the  arm,  to  start  him  out  for 
their  turn  in  the  procession.  "Of  course  you  could. 
It  's  the  very  thing  you  could  do.  It  's  what  Edith  said 
when  she  heard  you  were  going  to  study  law— that  you 
had  too  much  imagination  for  law  or  business  or  any 
thing  else  unless  you  took  to  poetry.  And  no  one  can 
make  a  living  out  of  poetry,  whereas  Polk  has  made 
thousands  of  dollars  out  of  his  'Tommy  Tenderfoot' 
alone.  .  .  I  thought  of  it  once,  myself,  and  got  a  lot 
of  books  on  the  technique  of  the  Drama  and  all  that. 
—I  '11  let  you  have  them,  if  you  wish.—  But  I  had  no 
invention.  I  had  to  fall  back  on  trying  to  dramatize 
novels.  While  you — " 

He  scarcely  heard  her.  His  imagination  had  leaped 
to  her  suggestion  like  a  child  to  a  new  toy.  To  earn 
his  living  by  writing  plays!  It  would  be  a  game  of 
"pretend"  such  as  he  had  used  to  play  with  Frankie. 
It  would  be  played  in  this  glittering  world  of  the 


278  DON-A-DREAMS 

theater,  away  from  office  drudgery  and  the  slavery  of 
business,  above  all  the  deceits  and  conventions  and  suf 
ferings  and  vices  of  real  life,  looking  down  on  the  work- 
a-day  world— as  he  had  looked  down  from  the  top  of 
the  Fifth  Avenue  stage— with  Margaret  beside  him,  in 
an  endless  happiness.  He  felt  that  a  door  which  he  had 
been  groping  for  in  darkness  had  suddenly  been  opened 
to  him.  It  was  work— a  future— everything! 

"It— it  would  be  great!"  he  said.  "Would  n't  it?" 

"It  would  be  the  very  thing  for  you.  I  wonder  you 
did  n't  think  of  it  yourself." 

He  smiled  up  at  the  calcium  light,  as  if  it  were  the 
wholesome  sunshine  on  his  face.  "I  could  n't  see  any 
future  for  me  here — and  still  I  liked  it  so  much.  I 
hated  to  leave  it.  I  did  n't  know  what  to  do." 

The  cry  from  the  jeweler's  counter  broke  in  on  them. 
They  exchanged  parting  smiles  as  they  were  separated 
by  the  crowd— the  smile  of  congratulation  and  the 
smile  of  ambition ;  for  Don,  at  last,  had  found  an  object 
and  a  task  in  life. 

He  walked  to  her  door,  that  night,  to  borrow  her  few 
books ;  and  he  went  to  the  Astor  Library,  next  morning, 
to  look  over  the  list  of  volumes  on  the  "Drama. ' '  He  was 
not  discouraged  when  he  found  hundreds  of  titles  under 
that  head ;  the  more  guides,  he  thought,  the  surer  travel 
ing.  He  confided  to  Walter  Pittsey  that  he  had  serious 
thoughts  of  trying  to  write  a  play,  and  Pittsey  nodded : 
"Why  not?"  He  had  been  through  the  play  writing 
period  himself,  and  was  tolerant. 

"There  's  a  pile  of  money  in  it,"  Bert  Pittsey  said, 
' '  and  you  're  nearer  it  in  the  theater  than  the  rest  of  us 
outside. ' ' 


THE  IDEALIST  279 

"I  don't  care  so  much  about  the  money,"  Don 
replied.  "It  's  the— the  fun  of  it." 

"Oh  go  on,"  Bert  replied.  "Take  the  money.  You 
may  need  it  some  day. ' ' 

"All  right,"  Don  laughed.  "Since  you  are  so  press 
ing." 

He  was  in  high  spirits.  He  took  optimistically  the 
news  from  his  mother  that  Frankie's  departure  for  col 
lege  had  left  the  house  very  empty,  and  that  Conroy 
was  giving  Uncle  John  so  much  trouble  that  the  "poor 
man"  looked  ten  years  older.  It  would  all  come  out 
right.  Everything  would  come  out  right.  He  tried  to 
cheer  Miss  Morris  with  that  hope  when  she  caught  the 
rib-point  of  her  umbrella  in  the  gauze  netting  of  the 
jeweler's  window  and  was  called  a  "fool"  by  the  stage 
manager.  ' '  I  am  a  fool, ' '  she  said  bitterly,  ' '  for  having 
brought  myself  down  to  the  level  of  such  beasts." 

"Never  mind,"  he  joked.  "When  we  get  that  play 
written,  you  '11  have  the  'lead'  to  do,  and  you  '11  help 
me  abuse  the  stage  manager." 

' '  You  '11  have  forgotten  me  by  that  time. ' ' 

"Forgotten  you !    Oh  say,  what  do  you  think  I  am !" 

They  were  sitting  at  their  table  under  their  stage  tree. 
She  looked  around  her  scornfully  at  her  neighbors.  ' '  I 
think  you  're  the  only  person  here  I  'd— I  'd  care  to  be 
remembered  by." 

"That  's  pleasant!" 

She  turned  her  eyes  to  him.  "It  's  true. ' ' 

It  struck  him  that  she  had  changed  since  their  first 
meeting,  that  she  had  come  to  the  surface,  that  she  was 
no  longer  hidden  behind  the  mask  of  her  beauty;  for 


280  DON-A-DREAMS 

the  expression  of  face  with  which  she  said  "It  's  true  !" 
was  alive  with  a  sort  of  proud  emotion  that  confessed 
friendship  and  invited  its  return. 

He  said,  humbly:  "It  's — It  's  mighty  good  of  you 
to  say  so.  You  've  been  kindness  itself  to  me  here." 

She  put  her  elbows  on  the  table  and  leaned  forward 
toward  him  in  her  chair.  "Because  I  wanted  you  to 
like  me, ' '  she  said  in  a  low  voice.  ' '  Do  you  f  .'  .  .  . 
Because,"  she  went  on  fiercely,  "I  've  hated  myself  so 
— in  this  life  here — that  I  thought  you  would  despise 
me.  And  I — I  've  done  despicable  things.  Polk — he 
was  in  one  of  them — before  I  learned  what  such  men 
are.  You  don't  know.  You  can't — because  you  're — 
you  're  different." 

He  tried  to  speak,  with  a  confused  smile. 

"No,"  she  said,  with  the  same  desperate  rapidity  of 
utterance,  ' '  don 't  say  that.  Don 't  say  anything.  I  'm 
— they  've—  That  brute  has  upset  me.  I  should  n't  be 
saying  such  things.  I  can't  help  it.  I— I  have  to  speak 
or  I  shall  be  crying.  Don 't  look  at  me. ' '  He  fixed  his 
eyes  on  the  floor,  bewildered.  "I  hated  everyone.  I 
looked  at  them  and  hated  them.  It  's  your  fault  that — ' ' 
She  choked.  "You  must  n't  judge  me.  You  came  to 
me  from  Coulton,  and  that  afternoon  at  Fort  George — 
from  the  life  I  'd  run  away  from — and  you  spoke  to 
me  from  it.  It  was  that.  That  's  why  I  wanted  you  to 
go  away,  to  go  home— and  you  would  n't.  And  I 
was  n't  strong  enough— myself — I  wanted  to  see  you 
and  talk  to  you.  You  must  n't  judge  me.  You  can't 
— you  can't  understand.  It  's— " 

The  cue  came:  "Lady  Whortley,  the  tenantry  are' 


THE  IDEALIST  281 

waiting  on  the  lawn."  When  Don  looked  up,  she  was 
lost  in  the  exit  of  the  supers. 

He  followed  her,  amazed  by  this  outburst,  which  he 
could  not  understand.  He  wished  to  assure  her  tha't 
of  course  he  liked  her ;  that  he  had  always  had  the  great 
est  admiration  and  respect  for  her;  that,  if  he  had  not 
shown  it,  it  was  because  he  had  been  a  little  in  awe  of 
her.  As  for  her  accusations  against  herself,  they  were 
foolish  (he  would  tell  her).  She  must  not  let  herself 
think  such  things.  She  was  everything  that  was  high- 
minded,  he  knew.  It  was  only  her  own  over-sensitive 
ness  that  accused  her  of  imaginary  defects. 

He  tried  to  meet  her  in  the  wings,  but  she  avoided 
him  by  not  coming  from  the  women's  dressing-room 
until  the  instant  that  she  was  to  go  on  the  stage;  and 
the  play  kept  them  separated  there.  He  decided  to 
meet  her  at  the  stage  entrance  and  escort  her  to  her 
boarding-house;  but  when  the  last  curtain  had  fallen 
and  he  hurried  to  the  supers'  dressing-room  to  get  into 
his  street  clothes,  he  found  that  Walter  Pittsey  and  Mr. 
Kidder  were  waiting  to  speak  to  him.  "I  'm  going  to 
Boston, ' '  Pittsey  explained,  ' '  to  open  an  agency  for  Mr. 
Kidder.  He  wants  you  to  take  charge  here,  in  my  place. 
What  do  you  say  ? ' ' 

"Why — why,  yes,  of  course,"  Don  stammered,  as  if 
reluctantly.  "If  Mr.  Kidder  wants  me  to—" 

Kidder,  instead  of  being  offended — as  Pittsey 
seemed  to  fear  he  might  be — put  in,  rather  apologeti 
cally:  "I  'm  going  to  have  something  better  for  you, 
pretty  soon.  You  look  after  these  boys,  now.  See  that 
they  take  care  of  their  costumes ;  that  's  the  main  thing. 


282  DON-A-DREAMS 

Pittsey  '11  explain  all  that.  Come  and  see  me  to-morrow 
morning  and  I  '11  give  you  the  new  pay  roll.  Two  of 
the  boys  are  quitting  to-night. ' '  He  patted  Don  on  the 
shoulder,  flatteringly,  as  he  turned  away.  "I  got 
something  up  my  sleeve  for  you." 

Don  had  to  remain  with  Pittsey  until  the  last 
of  the  "boys"  had  departed  and  the  last  article 
of  their  wardrobe  had  been  hung  on  its  appointed  hook ; 
and  then  Walter  accompanied  him  on  his  way  back  to 
their  rooms,  giving  him  instructions  in  his  duties  as 
time-keeper  and  "head  of  the  supers."  "It  's  ten  a 
week,  you  know,"  Pittsey  said,  "and  a  chance  to  get 
some  sort  of  little  'thinking  part'  if  one  turns  up.  You 
do  the  square  thing  by  Kidder,  and  he  '11  shove  you." 

"Shall  I  have  the— the  same  place  on  the  stage,  with 
Miss  Morris?"  Don  asked. 

Pittsey  smiled  at  a  street  lamp.  ' '  Certainly — unless, 
as  I  said,  the  stage  manager  wants  some  one  to  do  a  lit 
tle  bit  and  asks  Kidder — or  puts  you  into  it,  himself. 
You  '11  not  have  anything  new  to  do,  immediately— 
except  in  the  dressing-rooms.  One  of  the  new  men  will 
take  my  place  in  the  ranks." 

' '  Oh,  I  see, ' '  Don  said,  relieved.  He  added,  on  second 
thoughts :  "  I  'm  sorry  you  're  going.  I  '11  be  lost  with 
out  you. ' ' 

Pittsey  laughed.    "Oh,  you  '11  get  along." 

"I  don't  mean  that,"  Don  said.  "I  don't — care 
about  that.  You  've  been  so —  If  it  had  n't  been  for 
you— 

"That  's  all  right,  old  man,"  Pittsey  put  in,  hastily. 
"I  'm  only  worried  about  the  apartment — about  my 
share  in  it.  I — "  He  turned  to  watch  a  passing  car, 


THE  IDEALIST  283 

with  a  pretended  interest,  touched  by  Don's  gratitude 
but  nervously  afraid  of  this  expression  of  it. 

Don  said,  out  of  the  silence:  "I  wish  Miss  Morris 
.  .  .  was  n't  a  woman." 

"Was  n't  a—" 

' '  So  that  she  could  take  it.  You  and  she — you  're  the 
best  friends  I  've  had.  She  does  n't  seem  very  happy, 
alone  that  way. ' '  Pittsey  looked  at  him  with  a  quizzical 
lift  of  the  eyebrow;  but  he  went  on,  innocently:  "It  's 
pretty  hard  for  a  girl.  I  'd  give  anything  to  be  able 
to  help  her  the  way  you  did  me.  We  get  on  so 
well  together,  too.  .  .  Funny  thing — to-night — she 
thought  I  did  n't  like  her." 

He  spoke  as  if  he  were  thinking  aloud ;  and  Pittsey, 
as  if  ashamed  of  overhearing  him,  checked  him  with: 
"Perhaps  Bert  '11  know  some  one — to  come  in  with 
you." 

As  they  turned  up  the  old  and  broken  brownstone 
steps  that  mounted  from  the  street  to  the  front  door  of 
their  lodgings,  Don  said :  ' '  For  that  matter — now  that 
I  'm  getting  ten  a  week— we  could  keep  the  place  for 
you  till  you  come  back. ' '  And  Walter  was  still  remon 
strating  against  this  folly,  when  they  entered  the  "din 
ing-room"  and  were  confronted  by  Conroy,  soiled  and 
disheveled,  eating  at  the  table. 


XII 


HE  had  run  away  from  home ;  that  was  evident  at  once 
from  the  sulky  and  defiant  way  in  which  he  received 


284  DON-A-DREAMS 

their  surprised  greetings.  "Why,  what  happened?" 
Don  cried.  He  answered,  brutally:  "I  don't  know  that 
it  's  any  of  your  business."  He  continued  eating  in  a 
surly  indifference  to  them,  as  if  they  were  a  pair  of  in 
truders.  They  stood  awkwardly,  staring  at  him,  until 
Walter  Pittsey,  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulder,  turned 
into  the  other  room.  Don  heard  him  talking  in  low 
tones  to  his  brother,  who  was  already  in  bed.  There 
were  only  three  beds — three  cots — so  narrow  that  it 
was  impossible  for  more  than  one  person  to  sleep  in 
any  one  of  them. 

' '  You  might  have  let  us  know  that  you  were  coming, ' ' 
Don  said.  + 

' '  I  don 't  have  to  report  my  movements  to  you.  I  'm 
done  with  you.  •  You  mind  your  own  affairs  and  I  '11 
mind  mine." 

Don  sat  down,  sick  at  heart.  Conroy  finished  his  sup 
per  and  shoved  back  his  chair.  He  swayed  and 
stumbled  as  he  crossed  to  the  bedroom  door.  He  threw 
it  open  with  his  foot,  and  went  in  to  his  cot — the  cot 
in  which  Walter  Pittsey  had  been  sleeping.  He  sat 
down  on  the  side  of  it  and  began  to  take  off  his  shoes. 

Walter  came  out.  "Well,"  he  said,  as  he  shut  the 
door  behind  him,  "this  is  no  place  for  me." 

"No,"  Don  replied,  "nor  for  me  either.  I  might  as 
well  get  out  now.  I  can't  live  here — not  with  this  sort 
of  thing." 

' '  Nonsense !  He  '11  be  all  right  in  the  morning. 
He  '11  sleep  it  off." 

"No.  .  .  No.  .  .  He  thinks  I —  It  's  no  use. 
You  know  what  I  did.  I  did  it  because  I  had  to— but 


THE  IDEALIST  285 

he  '11  never  forgive  it.  I  might  as  well  get  out  now. 
It  '11  be  a  dog's  life.  Where  are  you  going?" 

"Don't  be  absurd."  He  put  down  his  hat.  "I  'm 
not  going  any  place.  Lend  me  your  mattress,  and  I  '11 
sleep  on  the  floor." 

Don  shook  his  head. 

"But  if  he  needed  looking  after— before, "  Pittsey 
coaxed,  "he  '11  need  it  a  hundred  times  more  now.  He 
won't  have  a  sou  to  pay  rent.  You  don't  intend  to 
leave  it  all  to  Bert,  do  you  ? ' ' 

"No,  but-" 

' '  Well,  then,  don 't  be  foolish.  Lend  me  your  mat 
tress  and  a  blanket,  and  I  '11  sleep  here. ' ' 

"It's  no  use,"  Don  said.  "I  can't  stay." 

However,  after  a  weakening  argument,  he  comprom 
ised  by  sleeping  on  the  floor  himself,  giving  Walter  the 
bare  springs  of  the  cot— which  they  had  carried  out 
into  the  dining-room.  He  heard  Conroy  snoring  in  a 
heavy  stupor  through  the  night;  and  in  the  morning 
he  was  willing  to  accept  his  cousin's  enmity  as  freeing 
him  from  a  responsibility  which  he  did  not  feel  himself 
able  to  discharge. 

Their  breakfast  was  a  constrained  and  unhappy  meal, 
in  spite  of  Bert  Pittsey 's  attempt  to  make  a  joke  of 
the  night's  discomforts.  "Your  back  must  look  like  a 
waffle,  Walt,"  he  laughed,  "with  the  pattern  of  those 
springs  on  it." 

"Well,"  Walter  replied,  "I  did  n't  notice  you  put 
ting  yourself  out  any. ' ' 

Bert  flushed  at  his  brotherly  dig.  Conroy  carried 
himself  as  if  Walter  had  been  justly  punished  for  his 


286  DON-A-DREAMS 

impertinent  intrusion  on  the  apartment.  Don  refused 
to  join  in  any  attempts  to  achieve  a  more  companionable 
mood.  They  finished  the  meal  as  they  had  begun  it. 

Don  helped  Walter  to  pack  his  trunk  and  accom 
panied  him  to  Kidder's  office;  and  when  they  had  said 
good-bye  at  the  railway  station,  Don  went  to  the  library 
and  sat  down  to  his  books  with  a  sigh  of  relief.  He  felt 
that  he  had  returned  to  solitude,  and  he  was  glad  of  it. 
He  was  ready,  now,  for  his  future,  his  salary  assured 
and  his  work  before  him. 

He  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  day  in  the  library, 
lunching  at  a  ten-cent  restaurant  so  as  to  avoid  a  mid 
day  meeting  with  Conroy.  He  did  not  think  of  Miss 
Morris,  until  he  met  her  on  the  stage,  that  night;  and 
then  she  was  so  smilingly  oblivious  to  what  had  passed 
between  them  on  the  previous  evening  that  he  was 
unable  to  refer  to  it.  They  talked  about  his  play-writ 
ing,  about  his  new  responsibilities  in  the  dressing-room, 
about  Conroy 's  return  and  about  Walter  Pittsey's 
departure ;  and  he  looked  out  on  the  world  of  his  stage 
work  and  his  petty  worries  from  the  charmed  circle  of 
her  friendship,  feeling  himself  solaced  and  protected 
in  it. 

When  he  received  a  letter  from  his  uncle,  asking  him 
to  take  charge  of  $30  a  month  for  Conroy's  mainte 
nance,  on  the  old  conditions,  he  talked  this  letter  over 
with  her;  and  they  agreed  that  it  would  be  better  to 
have  Conroy  independent  of  him.  ' '  Get  them  to  send  it 
to  the  other  Pittsey, ' '  she  advised.  ' '  He  '11  only  quarrel 
with  you  more  than  ever. ' ' 

' '  That  's  so, ' '  he  said.  ' '  Bert  has  his  confidence  still. 
And  he  may  know  how  to  handle  him. ' ' 


THE  IDEALIST  287 

But  Pittsey  did  not  look  on  the  proposal  with  any 
favor.  "I  don't  exactly  relish  being  keeper  to  a  remit 
tance  man  myself,"  he  objected.  "Why  can't  they 
send  him  the  money,  if  they  want  him  to  have  it?" 

"Well,  for  one  thing,  he  'd  not  keep  enough  of  it  to 
pay  his  rent  here." 

"That  's  so,"  Pittsey  reflected.  "But  I  'd  have  to  fix 
it  up  some  way  so  that  he  won't  turn  sour  on  me,  too." 

' '  Fix  it  any  way  you  please, ' '  Don  said.  ' '  I  can 't  do 
anything  with  him,  and  if  we  don 't  take  the  money  for 
him,  we  '11  either  have  to  pay  for  him  ourselves  or  turn 
him  out  on  the  street. ' ' 

Don  wrote  his  uncle  and  explained  the  situation ;  and 
Mr.  McLean,  in  his  reply,  accepted  the  inevitable.  ' '  He 
must  not  return,"  he  wrote.  "I  will  not  have  his 
mother  worried.  I  will  send  enough  for  his  support. 
Perhaps  if  we  let  him  go  his  own  gait  he  will  come  out 
all  right.  Keep  him  out  of  trouble.  If  anything  goes 
wrong,  write  me." 

Don  accepted  these  instructions  as  releasing  him 
from  all  but  the  most  casual  supervision,  and  he 
returned  eagerly  to  his  books.  From  reading  of  how 
to  write  plays,  he  had  begun  to  read  plays  them 
selves;  and  he  haunted  old  book  shops  for  the  second 
hand  volumes  of  "plays  for  amateurs  and  profes 
sionals,"  and  carried  them  about  in  his  pockets  and 
studied  them  on  the  benches  of  the  public  squares  or 
under  the  falling  leaves  of  Central  Park.  The  only 
dramas  which  he  could  see  performed  were  at  the  few 
theaters  that  gave  matinees  on  other  days  than  Wed 
nesdays  and  Saturdays;  for  on  those  latter  afternoons 
he  was  on  the  stage  himself.  But  he  found  an 


288  DON-A-DREAMS 

extravaganza  called  "The  Enchanted  Castle"  that  had 
a  matinee  on  Thursday;  and  this  gorgeous  spectacle 
appealed  to  him  like  a  fairy  tale. 

The  dramas  that  depicted  life  did  not  invite  him  to 
attempt  any  imitation  of  them,  but  he  felt  that  it  would 
be  a  pure  joy  to  plan  such  a  play  as  this  "Enchanted 
Castle";  and  he  amused  himself  by  picturing  a  ballet 
for  it— not  in  the  "wizard's  cavern,"  but  in  the  great 
hall  of  an  ice  palace,  of  which  all  the  floors  were  shining 
ice,  transparently  blue;  and  the  walls  were  blocks  of 
snow,  like  a  white  marble,  sparkling  in  raised  designs 
of  frost;  and  from  the  arched  ceilings  hung  great 
chandeliers  that  were  pendant  icicles  supporting  a 
myriad  of  lights ;  and  on  a  throne  that  looked  as  if  it 
had  been  carved  from  a  frozen  waterfall,  sat  the  god 
dess  of  Winter,  in  ermine  and  white  velvets,  holding 
her  wand  of  silver  tipped  with  a  great  pearl,  and  look 
ing  down  on  her  Amazons  with  their  icy  breastplates 
and  their  frost-spangled  skirts.  He  was  returning, 
unconsciously,  to  all  he  had  ever  imagined  of  Santa 
Claus's  palace  that  stood  on  the  top  of  a  mountainous 
iceberg  and  was  peopled  by  fairies  who  arrived  and 
departed  on  floating  clouds.  He  imagined  Winter  as 
a  neglected  divinity  who  envied  the  praises  which  man 
kind  and  especially  the  poets,  gave  to  her  sisters  of  the 
Spring,  the  Summer  and  the  Autumn.  He  saw  the 
Prince,  her  devoted  lover,  in  a  drifted  forest  (that  was 
his  ravine  at  Coulton  on  a  larger  scale)  sitting  on  some 
broken  fir  branches  with  a  dog  crouched  in  the  snow 
beside  him — when  suddenly  the  dog  barked  and  he 
looked  up  to  see  that  the  side  of  the  hill  had  opened 


THE  IDEALIST  289 

just  where  there  had  stood  a  huge  rock  dripping  with 
ice,  and  from  this  cave  a  band  of  nymphs  rushed  out 
and  surrounded  him  with  a  circle  of  spears— and  then 
Winter  herself  came  into  the  sunlight  and  waved  them 
back  and  said :  ' '  For  this  is  he ! " 

She  had  come  to  reward  him  for  his  devotion ! 

He  gathered  up  his  books  from  the  reading  table, 
returned  them  at  the  library  desk,  and  hurried  out  to 
the  street  to  be  alone  among  the  multitudes  of  the  city 
with  this  new  make-believe. 

She  led  him  into  her  underground  palace— which 
proved  to  be  an  Aladdin's  cave  encrusted  with  precious 
stones  set  in  ice— its  floors  covered  with  the  skins  of 
polar  bears,  its  walls  shining  with  theatrical  stalactites 
like  the  wizard 's  cavern ;  and  when  they  were  alone  in 
a  wonderful  secret  chamber  out  of  the  Arabian  Nights, 
they  sat  down  to  a  Homeric  feast  of  nectar  and  ambro 
sia.  She  told  him  how  she  had  watched  over  him  in  the 
woods,  patting  him  on  the  cheeks  with  snow  flakes  and 
caressing  him  with  the  winds.  She  had  longed  to  speak 
to  him,  but — but  intercourse  with  mortals  was  forbid 
den  by  the  gods ;  and  now,  having  sworn  her  attendant 
nymphs  to  secrecy,  she  was  daring  all  the  angers  of 
Olympus  by  making  herself  visible  to  him  and  receiv 
ing  him  here  in  this  enchanted  cave  which  she  had 
made  for  him  unknown  to  Jupiter. 

He  walked  up  Broadway,  listening  to  her  complaints 
of  loneliness,  of  the  disregard  of  men  who  had  become 
afraid  of  her  since  they  began  to  herd  together  in  cities 
and  avoid  the  bracing  airs  and  healthful  exercises  of 
the  winter;  and  he  tried  to  console  her  with  his  own 

19 


290  DON-A-DREAMS 

fervent  admiration,  reminding  her  of  his  life-long 
adoration  and  his  love  of  the  snow.  She  interrupted 
him  with  a  melancholy  smile,  to  say:  "And  you— even 
you — will  forget  me.  The  city  will  take  you.  You 
will  build  a  home  and  sit  by  your  fireside  with  your 
wife  and  children,  and  shudder  when  you  hear  me  call 
ing  to  you  mournfully  outside  among  the  frozen 
drifts." 

"Here  you!  Look  where  yuh're  goin',  will  yuh?" 
A  policeman  thrust  him  back  from  "Dead  Man's 
Curve,"  as  a  cable  car  swung  around  it  with  a  frantic 
clang  of  its  gong.  "D*  yuh  want  to  go  home  'n  an 
amb  'lance ! ' ' 

He  picked  up  his  hat,  and  brushing  it  with  his  coat 
sleeve  as  he  went,  he  hurried  to  the  safety  of  the 
benches  in  the  center  of  the  square.  There  he  sat  down 
with  his  drama,  still  trembling  from  the  fright,  but  still 
smiling  excitedly.  He  saw  himself  pleading  with  her  to 
take  him  away  from  the  world  which  he  despised,  to 
keep  him  with  her  hidden.  He  saw  that  she  would  not 
be  able  to  resist  him.  She  would  carry  him— on  a  cloud 
—to  her  summer  palace  in  the  unexplored  North.  A 
jealous  nymph  would  betray  her.  The  ballet  in  the  great 
hall  would  be  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of  Jupiter,  with 
stage  thunder.  The  gods  would  sentence  her  to  lose  her 
immortality  and  her  throne;  she  would  return  with 
him  to  the  world,  where  they  would  live  together— 
through  the  last  act — in  a  little  cottage  in  the  woods. 
And  she— because  she  shared  with  him  the  common 
menace  of  death  and  was  linked  to  him  by  a  doom  that 
made  love  a  fearful  and  precarious  joy— she  would  be 


THE  IDEALIST  291 

more  happy,  now,  than  she  had  ever  been  in  the  splen 
did  ennui  of  her  divinity. 

It  was,  to  him,  the  plot  of  a  great  play.  He  was  blind 
to  the  incongruity  of  his  Santa  Glaus  palace  and  his 
Homeric  mythology;  he  saw  nothing  unworthy  in  his 
chorus-girl  nymphs;  he  accepted  it  all  as  a  thing  so 
beautiful  that  it  almost  brought  tears  to  his  eyes.  He 
hastened  to  his  rooms  to  put  the  outlines  of  it  on  paper 
before  he  should  forget  them ;  and  he  noticed,  then,  for 
the  first  time,  that  it  had  begun  to  rain. 

He  found,  in  his  box,  a  letter  from  Margaret.  "Dear 
Don, ' '  it  read,  ' '  we  are  coming  home.  I  can 't  tell  you. 
It  's  mother's  fault.  Mr.  Berwick  warned  her  against 
doing  just  what  she  did  and  now  the  money 's  gone  and 
I  'm  glad  of  it  because  the  worry  's  over.  I  'm  trying 
to  be  brave  and  not  frightened,  but  I  wish  you  were  here 
to  tell  me  what  to  do.  I  '11  have  to  earn  my  own  living, 
you  know.  If  there  's  anything  left  it  will  not  be  more 
than  enough  for  her.  I  want  to  see  you  as  soon  as  we 
get  to  New  York.  I  'm  sure  you'll  be  able  to  tell  me. 
You  must  because  I  won't  go  back  home  and  take  music 
pupils  and  wear  made-over  dresses  like  Maud  Browning, 
and  the  only  thing  is  to  find  something  in  New  York. 
I  can  sing,  you  know,  and  play  a  little,  and  there  ought 
to  be  something. 

"I  must  tell  you,  though,  not  to  meet  me  at  the  boat 
because  I  quarreled  with  mother  about  a  man  here. 
You  never  saw  such  shoes  as  he  wore!  He  actually 
dared  to  ask  mother  if  he  could  marry  me  without  ever 
asking  me  what  /  thought  about  it  and  I  believe  she 
wanted  me  to  because  he  had  money.  I  did  n  't  dare  to 


292  DON-A-DREAMS 

tell  her  so,  but  I  told  her  I  would  n  't  look  at  him  if  he 
were  the  only  man  in  the  world.  She  behaved  shame 
fully  about  it.  I  'm  going  to  make  her  leave  me  in  New 
York  when  she  goes  up  to  Canada  to  see  if  Mr.  Berwick 
can't  do  anything  for  us  and  I  '11  write  to  you  when 
she  's  gone  because  you  know  ever  since  Mrs.  Kimball 
wrote  her  about  the  time  we  were  out  together  that  day 
she  has  been  saying  things  about  you  and  perhaps  she 
would  n't  leave  me  if  she  knew  you,  awful  you,  were  in 
the  city.  Have  a  plan  ready  for  me.  You  were  always 
good  at  plans,  were  n't  you?  I  know  this  letter  is 
frightfully  mixed  up  but  I  have  to  have  it  posted 
before  she  comes  back  from  buying  the  tickets  and  I 
have  no  time  to  read  it  over.  I  hope  you  will  be  glad  to 
see  me.  7  shall." 

There  was  a  postscript  to  say  that  if  he  were  out  of 
town  "or  anything,"  he  was  to  write  her,  "Poste 
Restante,"  at  the  New  York  General  Post  Office. 

He  read  the  letter  over  to  see  what  boat  she  was  com 
ing  on,  or  when  she  had  sailed.  There  was,  of  course, 
no  word  of  it.  The  thought  that  she  might  have  arrived 
already,  on  the  same  steamship  as  her  letter,  came  on 
him  in  a  warm  tremble  of  weakness. 

She  was  poor !  She  would  have  to  earn  her  living — 
in  New  York — with  him !  They  would  be  together,  on 
the  level  of  a  common  poverty !  .  .  .  He  looked  up 
from  the  letter  with  a  stupefied  expression  of  guilty 
joy ;  for  he  was  as  if  only  partly  awakened  from  sleep, 
his  brain  was  still  befuddled  with  the  imaginary  scenes 
of  his  play,  and  he  confused  reality  with  the  pictures 
of  his  dreams  and  accepted  her  letter  as  an  announce- 


THE  IDEALIST  293 

ment  that  his  goddess  had  been  deprived  of  her  divinity 
and  exiled  to  earth  with  him. 

The  music  publisher's  sign  on  the  door  before  him 
stared  at  him  insistently.  He  blinked  at  it— as  one 
might  rub  the  eyes.  Then  he  laughed,  somewhat  shame 
facedly,  and  ran  up  the  stairs,  taking  two  of  the  steps 
at  a  time. 


XIII 

"WELL,"  Miss  Morris  said,  "what  is  it?" 

"Whatis-what?" 

' '  Is  it  good  news  you  've  had  ?  Has  someone  left  you 
a  fortune  1  You  're  very  much  less  interested  in  us  than 
you  are  in  something  that  's  going  on  inside  you. ' ' 

Don  looked  confused.  "It  's  something  I  wanted  to 
ask  you  about.  I  can't— not  here."  The  lawn  party 
was  seated  all  around  them.  "It  's  something  private. ' ' 

She  studied  him  with  an  appearance  of  apprehension. 
"Has  Mr.  Kidder-" 

' '  No,  no.  It  's  nothing  like  that.  Let  me  walk  home 
with  you  to-night.  I  can't  tell  you  here." 

She  looked  down  at  the  handle  of  her  parasol  and  be 
gan  to  finger  the  tassel.  She, said  nervously :  "How  are 
the  plays  getting  on?  Have  you  started  to  write  one 
yet  ?  I  was  thinking,  the  other  day,  .of  a  good  plot  about 
—I  can't  remember—  But  you  must  have  thought  of 
hundreds  by  this  time,  have  n't  you?"  Her  smile 
seemed  to  tremble  on  her  lips  in  a  way  he  had  never  seen 
her  smile  flutter  before. 


294  DON-A-DREAMS 

' '  Why,  yes !  I  thought  of  one  to-day.  What  was  it  ? " 
He  laughed,  for  no  reason,  unless  it  was  that  she  her 
self  seemed  on  the  point  of  laughter.  ' '  Let  me  see ! " 

"You  're  like  me.  I  can't  remember  mine.  It  was 
something  about — ' ' 

' '  Oh,  I  know, ' '  he  broke  in.  * '  It  was  like  the  thing  I 
saw— 'The  Enchanted  Castle.'  It  was  about  a 
Prince—" 

He  began  to  tell  her,  and  she  made  a  good  pretence 
of  listening,  though  her  eyes  would  have  betrayed  her  if 
she  had  raised  them  to  him.  She  nodded  or  said  ' '  Yes  ? ' ' 
to  encourage  him  whenever  he  paused.  He  broke  down 
with  ' '  Oh,  I  can 't  tell  you.  I  have  n  't  it  clear  yet.  I—  " 
She  said :  ' '  Tell  me  on  our  way  home  to-night. ' ' 

They  rose  together.  "I  may  be  kept,"  he  explained, 
"in  the  dressing-room.  Sometimes  the  boys — " 

"I  '11  wait,"  she  said.    "Don't  try  to  hurry  them." 

HE  had  kept  her  waiting  at  least  five  minutes,  standing 
inside  the  stage  entrance  in  her  waterproof,  listening  to 
the  rain.  She  wore  a  little  cap  with  a  red  feather  in  it ; 
her  cheeks  were  burning.  "Have  you  no  umbrella?" 
she  cried.  ' '  Or  rubbers  ? ' ' 

"Yours  will  cover  us  both.  It  was  n't  raining  very 
hard  when  I  came.  My  shoes  don't  leak." 

' '  But  you  must  get  rubbers, ' '  she  scolded,  letting  him 
take  her  umbrella  from  her.  "You  '11  catch  your  death 
of  cold." 

He  opened  the  door  for  her.  "I  '11  get  them  in  the 
morning — first  thing."  He  put  up  the  umbrella  and 
held  it  over  her.  She  went  up  the  street  with  him,  lee- 


THE  IDEALIST  295 

turing  him  on  the  care  of  his  health.  At  the  corner,  she 
took  his  arm  and  stopped  him  on  the  curb.  "I  've  half 
a  mind  to  take  a  car, ' '  she  said. 

"No,  don't,"  he  coaxed.  "I  want— I  have  something 
to  ask  you.  Let  us  get  off  Broadway.  Let  us  walk  up 
Fifth  Avenue.  It  will  be  quieter. ' ' 

"Well,  promise  me  you  '11  never  do  it  again,"  she 
said,  with  a  fond  severity. 

' '  Never  again !    Come  on. ' ' 

She  tripped  across  the  shining  wet  asphalt,  on  his 
arm,  her  skirts  gathered  above  her  ankles,  as 
heedless  of  the  rain  as  a  Frenchwoman  in  a  picture. 
When  they  came  to  the  double  file  of  electric  globes  that 
shone  mistily,  two  by  two,  like  a  saluting  guard,  up  the 
slope  of  Fifth  Avenue,  in  the  white  obscurity  of  fog  and 
rain,  he  said:  "You  remember— in  the  Park— the  other 
day— you  asked  me  about  Miss  Richardson?" 

"Yes?" 

"I  've  just  had  a  letter  from  her.  She  's  coming  to 
New  York." 

"Oh?" 

' '  She  '11  have  to  earn  her  living.  They  've  lost  what 
ever  money  they  had.  Her  mother  invested  it — in 
stocks,  I  think.  She  wants  me  to  tell  her  what  to  do — 
for  work. ' ' 

She  had  drawn  back  a  little  from  him,  at  the  first 
word  of  Miss  Richardson,  and  a  point  of  the  umbrella 
had  caught  her  cap.  She  felt  her  feather  now — to  see 
that  it  was  not  broken — and  took  his  arm  again.  She 
asked:  "What  can  she  do?" 

He  explained  the  circumstances,  as  well  as  he  could. 


296  DON-A-DREAMS 

She  listened,  rather  coldly.  ' '  What  do  you  think  ? "  he 
asked,  at  last. 

' '  I  think  you  should  advise  her  to  go  back  to  Canada. 
I  don't  see  that  she  could  do  anything  here." 

' '  Unless  she  went  on  the  stage, ' '  he  suggested.  ' '  With 
her  singing — " 

She  cried  out  indignantly  against  such  a  proposal. 
He  did  not  know  what  the  stage  was,  for  a  girl !  She 
would  not  want  her  worst  enemy  to  take  up  that  life. 
"It  's  all  right,"  she  said,  "if  you  're  born  into  it— if 
your  parents  are  actors.  But  for  an  unprotected  girl- 
like  her — with  no  one  to  help  her  fight  her  battles — " 

"I  thought  perhaps  you  'd  help  her." 

"Me?  I  can't  fight  my  own!  No.  Tell  her  to  stay  at 
home.  She  '11  regret  it  every  day  of  her  life,  if  she 
doesn't." 

He  gloomed  at  the  pavement,  in  silence.  She  saw 
that  he  was  disappointed.  "Why  should  she  bother  you 
about  it?"  she  demanded.  "I  thought  she  had  quar 
relled  with  you  ? ' ' 

"Quarrelled?" 

"Yes.    That  day  in  the  Park,  you  said—" 

He  shook  his  head.    ' '  She  never  quarrelled  with  me. " 

"You  're  friends  still— after  what  happened?" 

"Nothing  happened,"  he  said.  "I  thought  she— I 
misunderstood  her,  I  suppose.  It  was  my  own  fault." 

"Then  you  want  her  to  come  here?" 

Her  tone  did  not  warn  him.  "Ye-es,"  he  confessed 
doubtfully,  "if  there  's  anything  she  can  do." 

She  had  released  his  arm.  "Why?"  she  asked,  re 
straining  herself.  ' '  What  is  it  ?  What  is  there  between 
you?" 


THE  IDEALIST  297 

"Nothing— on  her  side— except  friendship." 

She  broke  out  angrily:  "I  thought  you  had  more 
sense !  To  go  on  making  yourself  miserable  about  a  girl 
that  never  cared  two  straws  about  you.  I  don 't  see  what 
you  see  in  her — what  men  ever  see  in  girls  like  her — silly 
little  creatures.  She  's  just  using  you — or  wants  to — 
because  you  're  here  in  New  York  and  she  thinks  you 
can  help  her.  She  ruined  your  college— your  course  at 
college  for  you,  and  now  she  '11— you  '11  let  her  do  the 
same  thing  here.  I  thought  you  had  more  sense !" 

"Don't  .     .     .     say  such  things,"  he  replied  gently. 

' '  I  will ! "  she  cried.  ' '  It  's  the  truth. ' '  She  jerked 
the  umbrella  down  in  front  of  her  against  a  slant  of 
light  from  a  street  lamp.  "It  'd  be  just  like  you  to 
throw  yourself  away  on  a  chit  like  that— who  would  n't 
half  appreciate  you." 

"Please,  don 't, ' '  he  pleaded.  "I —  You  don 't  under 
stand.  I—" 

' '  I  will,  too  ! ' '  Her  voice  broke.  ' '  I  think  too  much  of 
you  to  see  you  doing  such  a  thing  without  toying  to 
stop  you.  Let  her  stay  away— or  let  her  go  back  to 
Canada.  You  were  just  beginning  to  get  along  all  right 
again  when  she  must  come  upsetting  all  our  plans  and 
making  you  miserable. ' '  She  threw  away  all  her  dignity, 
all  her  reserve.  "Have  n't  I  tried  to—  Have  n't  I  a 
right  to —  Don 't  you  even  care  enough  for  me  to — to  let 
me  tell  you— to  let  me  help  you?" 

' '  You  don 't  know, ' '  he  said.  ' '  You  don 't  understand. 
She  's  been— ever  since  I  can  remember — we  've  been 
.  .  .  My  whole  life  has— has  grown  up  with  her.  All 
that  'sbest— " 

"And  have  n't  I ?    Ever  since  you  were  a  little  fellow 


298  DON-A-DREAMS 

— your  first  day  at  school — and  ever  since —  And  now, 
When  we  were—  I  won 't  let  her !  She  has  no  more  claim 
on  you  than  anyone  else.  Friendship !  She  'd  throw 
you  over  in  a  minute,  would  n't  she?  Has  she  ever 
said—  Has  she  ever  promised — " 

"It  is  n't  her.  It  's— myself."  He  glanced  at  her 
timidly,  and  saw  only  her  mouth,  in  the  white  light  of 
the  electric  globe  before  them,  the  rest  of  her  face  being 
in  the  shadow  of  the  umbrella ;  but  her  lips  were  tragic 
ally  drawn  and  twisted ;  and  the  sight  of  them  silenced 
him.  He  understood  that  he  was  giving  her  pain— as 
he  seemed  to  give  everybody  pain— his  mother,  his 
father,  Margaret  sobbing  on  the  porch,  his  cousin  Con- 
roy,  who  hated  him.  He  felt  helplessly  guilty,  without 
knowing  what  it  was  in  him  that  grieved  and  disap 
pointed  every  one  who1  had  any  affection  for  him. 

"Well  then,"  she  said  hoarsely,  "I  won't  let  you. 
You  must  n't  do  it.  It  's  some  false  idea  of  honor.  I — 
Your  other  friends  have — have  rights,  too.  You  owe  us 
something."  She  had  regained  some  sort  of  control  of 
herself  with  an  effort  that  left  her  voice  uncertain,  un 
strung.  ' '  You  have  been  trying  to  wreck  your  whole  life 
on  account  of  her.  You  failed  in  your  examinations  for 
the  university — with  her.  You  ran  away  from  college — 
on  account  of  her.  And  now  you  want  to —  It  's  a 
shame ! ' '  She  turned  with  him  into  the  cross  street  on 
which  she  lived,  and  taking  his  arm  again,  she  said: 
' '  Don 't  you  even  think  enough  of  me  to  take  my  advice  f 
Are  n't  we  even — even  friends  enough  for  that?" 

"You  're  everything  that  's—  You  're  the  best  friend 
I  ever  had." 


THE  IDEALIST  299 

' '  Well  then,  let  me  be  that.  Let  me  help  you.  I  'm 
sure  I  care  for  you  more  than  she  does.  And  if  you  '11 
do  things  for  her,  why  can't  you  do  them  for  me?" 

"I  will.    I-" 

"Then  give  her  up.  Let  her  go.  If  she  has  no  more 
than  friendship  for  you,  let  me  give  you  that.  What  is 
there — ' '  He  felt  her  trembling  against  his  arm.  ' '  What 
do  you — want  her  to  be?  Ask  me —  I  '11 — "  Her  voice 
gave  out  in  a  whisper,  ashamed. 

"Oh,  please — "  Her  kindness,  her  affectionate  kind 
ness,  almost  brought  tears  to  his  eyes.  "  I  'm  always— 
I  make  every  one  miserable.  I  disappoint  every  one." 

"No,  you— you  would  n't  now.  Not  after  that. "  She 
spoke  as  if  through  blood  in  her  throat.  "You 
would  n't  make  me  ashamed.  You  're  too — " 

They  stood  at  the  foot  of  her  steps,  the  rain  beating 
on  the  umbrella.  He  could  see  her  face  only  as  a  white 
dimness.  "T-take  the  umbrella,"  she  said,  her  teeth 
chattering.  "I  'm  so  cold.  The  rain  's  so  cold.  I — 
Don't—  '  Her  hand  found  his  in  the  darkness,  and  he 
felt  it  shaking.  .  .  .  "Good—".  .  .  She  turned 
with  a  little  hysteric  catch  of  breath  that  was  half  a  sob, 
and  she  stumbled  heavily  up  the  steps,  bent  forward  as 
if  the  climb  were  a  mile  high. 

He  could  not  see  her  in  the  shadow  of  the  doorway. 
He  thought  he  heard  her  voice.  Then  the  door  shut 
with  a  sharp,  nervous  suddenness. 

He  began  to  walk  home,  wet  and  shivering,  through 
the  drenched  streets.  What  was  it,  in  him,  that  disap 
pointed  everybody  ?  Why  did  n  't  they  let  him  live  his 
own  life  in  his  own  way,  and  be  satisfied  with  that? 


300  DON-A-DREAMS 

Why  were  they  always  interfering  with  him— trying  to 
make  him  do  what  they  wished,  instead  of  what  he 
knew  was  best  for  him?  Here  was  Miss  Morris,  now. 
What  did  she  know  about  Margaret  that  she  should 
turn  on  him  so? 

He  stepped  out  angrily,  glaring  at  the  pavement  ahead 
of  him,  and  splashing  from  the  curbstones  into  the  run 
ning  gutters  as  he  crossed  the  streets.  The  avenue  was 
deserted,  except  for  an  occasional  belated  cab  that 
dragged  by,  on  its  noiseless  tires,  behind  a  slow  clatter 
of  tired  hoofs,  the  driver  muffled  to  the  ears  in  his  rain 
cape,  his  fares  shut  in  behind  the  misted  panes  of  win 
dows  that  were  as  dark  as  those  of  the  closed  houses 
which  Don  passed.  He  strode  down  the  shining  flag 
stones,  alone  with  his  indignation  and  driven  by  it, 
swinging  his  clenched  hand. 

It  was  the  very  violence  of  his  pace  that  brought  him 
relief,  at  last ;  for  the  blood  drove  through  his  body  with 
a  brisk  exhilaration  that  was  irresistible.  He  threw 
back  his  shoulders,  to  fill  his  lungs ;  he  put  his  chin  up  ; 
his  frown  began  to  change  from  a  worried  glower  to  an 
expression  of  defiance.  .  .  If  they  were  all  against 
him,  why,  let  them  be  so !  Let  it  rain !  What  did  he 
care  ?  The  whole  world  had  been  against  him.  Fortune 
had  done  its  worst.  And  in  spite  of  it— in  spite  of 
everything — he  had  won  Margaret  back  to  join  him; 
his  life  was  working  out  in  the  way  he  had  planned ;  and 
his  happiness  was  already  almost  upon  him,  like  the 
burst  of  sunshine  in  which  this  black  downpour  would 
come  to  an  end  in  the  morning. 

He  swung  along  with  a  confident  step,  spurning  the 


THE  IDEALIST  301 

wet  stones  underfoot.  He  felt  the  water  in  his  shoes 
and  smiled  as  if  it  were  a  part  of  the  universal  malevo 
lence  which  he  despised.  He  summed  up  his  defiance  of 
adversity  (and  Miss  Morris)  in  an  absurb  resolve  that 
he  would  never  buy  rubbers— never ! 


PAET  IV 
THE  VISIONARY 


HE  looked  around  him  at  the  boarding-house  parlor,  his 
hat  in  his  hand — with  an  appearance  of  having  sud 
denly  dashed  in  there,  at  the  end  of  a  long  run,  and 
stopped  dead,  in  the  midst  of  empty  chairs— standing 
before  the  yellowed  keyboard  of  an  old  ' '  grand ' '  piano, 
and  facing  the  double  doors  that  were  closed  like  a  par 
tition  at  the  end  of  the  room.  Her  letter— Margaret 's 
letter — received  on  the  previous  evening,  had  given  him 
the  address ;  and  every  thought  of  every  minute,  since, 
had  been  rushing  toward  this  moment  of  his  arrival 
breathlessly.  The  maid  who  had  answered  the  doorbell 
had  gone  upstairs  to  tell  her  that  he  had  come.  He 
heard  his  heart  beating  in  his  ears,  and  the  stuffy  silence 
of  the  room  seemed  to  be  listening,  with  a  ghostly  atten 
tion,  to  the  pulse  of  his  emotion.  He  turned  away,  to 
face  the  machine-made  lace  curtains  that  hung  like  a 
faded  and  simpering  coquetry  before  two  over-dressed 
old  windows — old  windows  that  had  once  been  the  smil 
ing  eyes  of  a  home  and  still  made  a  pathetic  pretence 
of  welcoming  the  homeless,  boarder. 

He  heard  the  maid  coming  down  the  stairs.  He 
waited  for  the  step  that  should  thrill  him.  "Well?" 
Margaret  said,  from  the  doorway. 

She  was  smiling,  with  an  air  of  having  taken  advan- 

20  305 


306  DON-A-DREAMS 

tage  of  him,  of  having  studied  him  while  he  was  un 
aware  of  her;  and  he  caught,  at  once,  in  that  smile,  a 
new  expression  of  friendly  criticism,  of  amused  toler 
ance,  that  marked  some  unexpected  change  in  her.  She 
came  to  him  to  give  him  her  hand.  His  voice  clung  to 
his  throat,  in  a  lump.  "Why  did  n't  you  come  last 
night?" 

"I— I  had  to  work,"  he  said. 

She  withdrew  her  hand,  still  smiling.  ' '  Oh,  I  forgot 
that  you  were  a  working  man  now ! ' ' 

Her  somewhat  formal  affectation  of  parlor  gaiety  had 
the  effect,  on  him,  of  an  insincerity;  he  could  not  find 
a  reply. 

She  reached  a  cushion  that  stood  uncompromisingly 
in  the  angle  of  a  sofa  arm,  shook  it  and  sat  down  against 
it.  ' '  Won 't  you  take  a  chair  ? ' ' 

The  nearest  was  a  little  spindle-shanked  pretence  of 
elegance  that  had  been  gilded  with  a  brush.  "I  'm 
afraid  that  will  break  with  you, ' '  she  warned  him.  He 
had  to  cross  the  room  to  a  bow-legged  parlor  chair  that 
was  all  curves  and  discomfort ;  and  the  distance  that  lay 
between  them,  then,  was  chilling. 

"We  arrived  Wednesday,"  she  said,  as  if  he  had 
asked  her  for  that  information.  "Mother  left  at  six 
o'clock  last  night.  So,  you  see,  I  did  n't  waste  any  time, 
did  I?" 

He  shook  his  head,  unable  to  get  his  eyes  past  the 
worn  seam  of  the  carpet  that  divided  them.  She  had 
changed.  She  was  older,  more  self-possessed,  with  an 
air  of  having  come  back  from  travel  to  see  him  from  a 
new  point  of  view1.  Even  her  clothes  were  strange ;  for, 
in  his  expectation,  he  had  thought  of  her  as  dressed  in 


THE  VISIONARY  307 

the  summer  gown  and  be-ribboned  hat  in  which  he  had 
last  seen  her ;  and  she  wore  heavy  English  walking  shoes, 
a  plain  black  skirt,  a  cloth  waist  with  bands  of  ruching 
at  her  wrists  and  collar —  He  dropped  his  eyes  quickly 
when,  from  that  collar,  he  reached  her  smile  again. 

"Tell  me  about  yourself,"  she  said.  .  .  "How  is 
Conroy?" 

"He  's  .     .     .    well." 

"Are  you  together  still?" 

' '  Yes.    We  live  together. ' ' 

"What  is  he  doing?" 

' '  Nothing,  I  think.    His  father  sends  him  money. ' ' 

' '  But  you  're  at  work  ? ' ' 

"Yes,"  he  answered  dumbly. 

"Well  .  .  .  Now,"  she  said,  with  a  determined 
brightness,  "have  you  made  a  plan  for  me?" 

He  shook  his  head.    "I—" 

' '  Oh,  but  you  must  have, ' '  she  cried,  in  another  voice. 
"I  've  depended  on  you.  I  left  everything  until  I 
should  see  you." 

"Did  n't  you  .     .     .     think  of  anything  yourself?" 

"How  could  I?  I  did  n't  know  of  anything  to  think 
of.  I  thought  you— ' ' 

He  found  her  staring  at  him  in  an  angry  dismay.  He 
gulped  miserably.  "I  have  n't  found  anything  for  my 
self—except  suping— and  trying  to  write  plays." 

"What  is  'suping'?" 

"In  the  theater— like  the  chorus— only  you  don't 
have  to  sing." 

"And  that  's  all  you  've  thought  of!"  she  cried. 

He  did  not  reply. 

She  rose,  stiffly.    She  said : ' '  Then  I  suppose  I  '11  have 


308  DON-A-DREAMS 

to  find  something  myself.    Thank  you.    I  'm  glad — " 

"Wait."  He  sprang  up,  dropping  his  hat.  "Don't 
go.  I  '11—  I  '11  think  of  something.  I  could  n't  think 
of  anything  but  seeing  you.  I  forgot.  I  did  n't  have 
time.  There  's  something.  I  '11  find  something.  I  know 
a  girl  here — Miss  Morris.  She  '11  know.  She  's  from 
Coulton.  I  asked  her.  She —  I  only  suggested  the  stage 
because  I  thought,  with  your  singing  and  that,  you  'd 
be  able  to —  I  did  n't  know  of  anything  else.  I  thought 
when  we  met  we  'd  be  able  to  talk  it  over.  I  thought 
you  'd  know,  yourself. ' ' 

"Well!    Why  did  n't  you  say  so!" 

"I — "  He  looked  around  the  room,  as  if  vaguely  ac 
cusing  it  of  being  the  cause  of  his  discomfiture.  "I 
thought  you  would  come  out— where  we  could  talk." 

She  left  him,  to  go  upstairs  for  her  hat ;  and  he  stood 
gazing  at  the  empty  doorway  as  if  he  saw  there,  still, 
the  expression  of  her  face  when  she  had  turned  from 
him,  as  if  he  saw  in  that  expression  the  visible  failure 
of  this  meeting  of  which  he  had  hoped  so  much.  With 
a  look  of  panic,  he  turned  to  pick  up  his  hat,  and  crush 
ing  it  down  on  his  head  he  began  to  walk  up  and  down 
the  room,  biting  his  lip,  his  whole  face  working  in  a  des 
perate  effort  to  think  of  something  to  do,  something  to 
say,  by  which  to  regain  the  ground  that  he  had  lost. 

When  she  came  downstairs  again,  she  found  him  pale, 
but  tremblingly  cool.  He  said,  at  once,  as  soon  as  he 
had  opened  the  door  for  her : ' '  Your  letter  took  me  so  by 
surprise— I  was  looking  forward  so  to  seeing  you— that 
I  did  n't  think  how  anxious  you  would  be  to  find  some 
thing  at  once.  How  long  have  you?  When  will  your 
mother  be  back?" 


THE  VISIONARY  309 

She  replied,  still  somewhat  resentfully:  "In  a  week, 
at  most. ' ' 

"That  will  give  us  plenty  of  time.  There  's  your 
singing,  now ;  you  should  be  able  to  do  something  with 
that.77  (He  had  remembered  Pittsey's  criticism  of  Miss 
Morris :  ' '  She  ought  to  be  singing  in  a  church  choir. ' ' ) 
"You  could  get  something  in  some  of  the  churches— or 
in  some  of  the  big  concerts — in  the  choruses  at  least. 
And  you  could  get  singing  pupils — or  piano  pupils — 
more  easily  here  than  at  home,  I  should  think.  I  '11  ask 
Miss  Morris  about  it.  She  should  know. ' ' 

"Yes,  but  I  can't  sing.  I  found  that  out  in  Germany. 
And  my  playing  is— is  elementary.  None  of  the  big 
men  would  even  teach  me,  over  there.  They  said  'Come 
back  in  three  years  and  we  '11  see ' ! " 

"Well,  even  so."  He  was  determinedly  undiscour- 
aged.  "This  is  n't  Germany.  You  could  go  on  study 
ing  at  the  same  time."  He  talked,  with  his  eyes  fixed 
before  him,  conscious  that  he  was  trying  to  deceive  her, 
as  well  as  himself ;  but  he  felt  that  he  was  compelled  to 
play  the  part — compelled  by  her  expectation  of  aid  from 
him — and  he  felt,  too,  that  all  this  matter  of  earning 
a  livelihood  was  a  thing  of  no  importance  so  he  had  her 
with  him. 

She  asked  him  what  he  had  been  doing,  and  he  told 
her.  He  accepted  meekly  her  criticism  of  his  failure  to 
get  anything  but  his  ridiculous  stage  work.  "I  have 
my  mornings  free  to  look  for  something  better, ' '  he  ex 
plained,  "and  I  'm  using  my  experience  at  the  'Classic' 
to  do  some  play-writing." 

"You  should  n't  have  left  college,"  she  said,  in  the 
manner  of  a  challenge. 


310  DON-A-DREAMS 

"No,"  he  admitted,  humbly.  "However,  it  can't  be 
helped  now."  He  had  no  thought  of  reproaching  her 
for  her  part  in  that  fiasco. 

She  asked,  in  a  gentler  voice :    "Where  shall  we  go  ?" 

"Up  the  Avenue?"  he  suggested. 

"Very  well." 

If,  an  hour  earlier,  he  could  have  foreseen  the  per 
functory  conversation  of  that  walk,  it  would  have  de 
pressed  him  like  a  disillusionment ;  but  in  the  agonized 
moments  of  his  panic  in  the  boarding-house  parlor,  he 
had  consented  to  the  mutilation  of  his  hope,  he  had  him 
self  used  the  knife  on  it,  and  he  had  met  her,  at  the 
doorway  again,  aware  that  she — like  Miss  Morris,  like 
his  father,  like  all  the  other  agents  of  opposing  circum 
stance — was  an  enemy  of  his  philosophy  of  life ;  that  he 
must  love  her  without  the  thought  of  any  reward  from 
her.  And  he  saw  this  without  any  sentimental  self-pity, 
without  any  false  heroics,  as  a  thing  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  his  attempts  to  realize  the  future  which  he  had 
planned. 

It  gave  his  manner  a  tinge  of  melancholy,  as  if  he 
were  years  older  than  she ;  and  he  listened  and  replied 
to  her,  without  looking  at  her,  his  eyes  on  the  humid- 
blue  vista  of  the  avenue  that  was  so  stone-bare  in  the 
autumn  mist. 

She  detailed,  at  great  length,  the  story  of  her  quarrel 
with  her  mother;  and  he  gathered  from  it  that  Mrs. 
Richardson,  being  frivolous  and  fond  of  travel,  was 
tired  of  dragging  her  daughter  about  with  her,  wished 
her  to  get  married  and  begrudged  her  the  money  spent 
on  her  tuition.  It  was  Margaret's  opinion  that  her 


THE  VISIONARY  311 

study  of  music  was  to  be  the  serious  pursuit  of  her  life ; 
her  mother  considered  a  musical  education  merely  an 
aid  to  matrimony,  an  alluring  Springtime  accomplish 
ment  for  young  ladies  who  had  not  yet  mated  and  built 
their  nests.  These  opinions  had  clashed  when  Margaret 
had  rejected  the  man  who  wore  such  detestable  shoes. 
They  were  still  at  war.  The  financial  crisis  had  made 
the  struggle  more  desperate.  Mrs.  Richardson  evi 
dently  looked  for  an  immediate  marriage  to  relieve  her 
of  the  expense  of  a  daughter.  Margaret  planned  to 
make  herself  self-supporting  so  that  she  might  be  free 
to  follow  her  ambitions.  Don  was  to  help  her.  He 
promised  that  he  would. 

HE  came  to  his  evening's  meeting  with  Miss  Morris, 
resolved  to  appeal  again  to  her  for  aid ;  but  since  their 
parting  in  the  rain  at  Mrs.  Kahrle's  steps,  she  had  had 
an  unfrank  manner  that  made  confidences  impossible. 
She  had  not  met  his  eyes  squarely  when  he  confronted 
her  with  his  usual  friendliness.  Her  smile,  in  their 
stage  promenades,  had  been  merely  formal.  Several 
times,  seated  at  the  rustic  table  with  her,  he  had  looked 
up  to  find  her  watching  him  with  a  thoughtful  intensity 
that  startled  him.  She  maintained  an  oblique  reserve, 
a  sort  of  sidelong  watchful  silence  which  let  him  know 
that  she  was  thinking  of  him,  and  made  him  feel  that 
she  was  disappointed  in  him,  but  left  it  impossible  for 
him  to  defend  himself. 

Now,  when  he  tried  to  make  her  meet  him  frankly 
with  her  blame— by  telling  her  that  Margaret  had 
arrived  and  confessing  the  girl's  unhappy  circum- 


312  DON-A-DREAMS 

stances— she  listened  without  a  word.  And  when  he 
asked  her  for  help,  for  advice  at  least,  she  replied :  "I 
can't  help  her.  I  could  n't  help  myself." 

"Will  you  let  me  bring  her  to  call  on  you?  If  you 
were  to  meet  her — ' ' 

She  shook  her  head.  "What  is  the  use?  I  can  do 
nothing  for  her.  She  will  be  better  in  Canada. ' ' 

"You  are  very  unjust  to  her,"  he  said,  hurt. 

She  did  not  reply.  He  nursed  his  resentment  until, 
in  a  later  scene,  he  caught  her  regarding  him  with  a 
tragic  dumb  gaze  that  overcame  him,  like  a  memory  of 
his  mother's  grief,  with  a  strickening  remorse;  and 
when  they  met  again,  he  said :  ' '  You  asked  me,  once,  not 
to  judge  you— and  you  're  doing  that  now,  when  you 
should  n't,  when  you  don't  understand.  You  don't 
know  how  it  hurts  me. ' ' 

She  brought  her  hand  up,  as  if  to  brush  back  a  stray 
ing  hair  from  her  forehead,  shutting  her  eyes  for  the 
instant  that  her  hand  covered  them.  "No,"  she  said. 
"It  'syou." 

"How  is  it?"  he  argued.  " What  have  I  done ?  I  'm 
what  I  always  have  been.  .  .  I  can't  change.  I 
can't  be  untrue— to  myself.  I  'm— I  'm  not  very  happy, 
but  I  should  despise  myself  if  I  did  that. ' ' 

He  did  not  look  at  her  in  the  long  silence  that  fol 
lowed.  As  she  left  him,  she  said:  "I  'm  not  accusing 
you.  Only  ...  I  can't  help  you  to  do  what  you 
wish.  Don't  ask  me— please." 

WHEN  he  had  left  Margaret,  after  that  first  meeting, 
he  had  been  numb  with  a  cold  depression  of  spirits.  He 


THE  VISIONARY  313 

had  been  not  merely  discouraged ;  he  had  been  too  down 
cast  to  feel  discouragement.  And  his  revival  had  been 
due  to  one  of  those  unreasonable  operations  of  his  tem 
perament  which  he  could  not  justify,  which  he  could 
not  explain,  which  were  as  much  a  mystery  to  him  as 
they  were  to  Miss  Morris  and  to  everyone  else.  It  was 
as  if  his  affection  for  Margaret  were  stronger  when  he 
was  alone  than  when  he  was  with  her;  as  if  his  imagi 
nation  made  her  a  dearer  figure  in  his  absent  thought 
than  she  was  in  her  own  person.  And  in  the  days  that 
followed,  no  matter  how  worried  and  unhappy  he  was 
while  he  was  with  her,  as  soon  as  he  had  left  her  he  was 
tormented  by  the  same  restless  longings,  the  same  ar 
dors  that  had  kept  him  true  to  his  dreams  of  her  in  all 
the  time  they  had  been  separated. 

On  the  morning  after  his  unsuccessful  appeal  to  Miss 
Morris  for  aid,  he  awoke  as  eager  to  see  the  girl  as 
ever.  He  brushed  his  shabby  clothes  microscopi 
cally;  he  polished  his  shoes  with  elaborate  care;  he 
gulped  his  breakfast;  and  it  was  not  until  he  was  on 
the  street  that  he  remembered  he  had  no  encouraging 
news  to  take  to  her  and  no  new  plan  to  suggest.  He 
turned  aside  from  the  direct  route  to  her  door,  and 
wandered  about  the  pavements  trying  to  think  of  some 
excuse  for  such  an  early  call. 

He  loitered  at  the  art-shop  windows,  seeing  her  as 
beautiful  as  a  plaster  "Clytie,"  as  regal  as  "  Queen 
Louise"  descending  palace  steps,  as  tender  as  the 
drooping  maiden  of  a  "Lovers'  Quarrel."  He  stood 
before  the  display  of  photographs  at  a  theater  door, 
gazing  at  a  vision  of  her  as  a  prima  donna  in  grand 


314  DON-A-DREAMS 

opera— in  an  opera  of  which  he  had  written  the  libretto 
—with  her  photograph  on  a  gilded  easel,  in  the  foyer, 
opposite  his  own.  In  a  bookshop,  he  saw  her  buying 
a  set  of  his  collected  plays.  All  the  windows  that  he 
passed  were  filled  with  presents  which  the  future  held 
for  her.  A  hansom  cab  was  drawn  up  before  a  florist's 
door  while  he  was  ordering — 

He  frowned  in  an  attempt  to  concentrate  his  mind 
on  some  practical  solution  of  her  present  difficulties; 
and  he  even  bought  a  morning  newspaper  to  read  the 
"want"  advertisements  again.  But  there  was  no  sit 
uation  vacant  that  she  could  fill;  and  he  could  think 
of  nothing  except  the  possibility  that  she  had  thought 
of  something  herself.  He  went  apologetically  to  con 
sult  her,  with  the  paper  in  his  pocket  as  an  excuse. 

The  maid  who  came  to  the  door  told  him  that  "Miss 
Richards"  had  just  gone  out. 

He  hurried  back  toward  Broadway  in  the  hope  of 
overtaking  her.  He  thought  he  saw  her  in  the  distance 
but  a  nearer  view  showed  that  it  was  not  she.  He  be 
gan  to  wander  about  from  street  to  street  in  the  idle 
hope  of  coming  on  her  suddenly,  his  whole  mind  occu 
pied  by  that  absurd  chance,  in  the  insane  longing  of 
love  that  is  a  torture  of  impossible  expectation,  of  a 
wish  so  strong  that  it  seems  a  surety. 

He  spent  the  morning  chasing  this  will-o'-the-wisp, 
alternating  between  a  mood  of  pity— in  which  he  saw 
her  going  from  office  to  office  in  search  of  employment, 
alone  and  discouraged— and  a  glorious  foresight  of  a 
future  in  which  she  should  be  as  fortunate  as  he.  Now 
the  streets  were  crowded  with  the  rich  in  spirit,  who 


THE  VISIONARY  315 

passed  him  by  as  a  street  beggar  asking,  for  her,  only 
the  alms  of  a  little  happiness.  And  now,  the  houses 
and  the  people  and  all  the  activities  of  the  world  were 
the  background  and  the  unregarded  chorus  for  a  life 
that  was  to  hold,  with  her,  the  glaring  center  of  the 
stage. 

It  was  a  brisk,  chill  morning.  He  wore  a  Spring 
overcoat  of  which  the  collar  was  so  soiled  that  he  had 
turned  it  up  to  conceal  its  condition  from  anyone  who 
might  walk  behind  him.  He  had  lost  one  of  his  gloves, 
and  for  that  reason  he  carried  his  left  hand  in  the 
pocket  of  his  coat.  His  face  was  lean;  his  eyes  had  a 
wistful  emptiness;  his  hair,  untrimmed,  came  down  in 
a  ragged  fringe  on  the  upturned  collar  of  his  coat. 


II 


SHE  had  been  to  the  studio  of  a  Mr.  Barber,  a  teacher 
of  singing  whom  she  had  known  in  Canada ;  and  when 
Don  called  on  her,  in  the  afternoon,  she  had  the  wor 
ried  look  of  discouragement  which  he  understood  so 
well.  She  had  been  told  that  there  was  nothing  for  her 
in  her  singing  or  her  music — nothing.  The  church 
choirs  were  out  of  the  question,  for  they  paid  no  sal 
aries  worth  speaking  of,  except  to  the  soloists,  and  she 
had  not  voice  enough  for  solo  parts.  The  grand  opera 
chorus— and  all  other  such— had  been  filled  up  since 
the  "trying  out"  in  August.  There  was  no  possibility 
of  getting  piano  pupils  unless  she  could  find  a  position 


316  DON-A-DREAMS 

as  music  teacher  in  some  girl's  school;  and  even  for 
that,  she  would  need  influence,  " pull."  In  short,  she 
must  recognize  that  in  New  York  the  competition  was 
so  keen,  musicians  were  so  numerous  and  the  average 
of  ability  was  so  high,  that  it  was  impossible  for  her  to 
support  herself  as  so  many  young  women  supported 
themselves  in  smaller  cities.  It  would  be  easier  for  her 
among  friends  and  relatives,  in  the  circle  of  family 
acquaintances.  "In  fact,"  she  said,  "he  told  me  to  go 
home!" 

"That  'sail  right,"  Don  replied  doggedly.  "Tnat  's 
what  they  always  tell  you." 

"But  what  am  I  to  do?" 

"Stay  here.  Something  will  turn  up.  It  's  bound 
to." 

She  cried  impatiently:  "But  something  has  to  'turn 
up'  or  I  can't  stay!" 

"I  know.  That  's  the  fix  I  was  in.  That  's  why  I 
took  what  I  'm  doing  now.  So  did  Miss  Morris.  She 
had  her  singing  and  her  music,  like  you." 

"On  the  stage,  you  mean?  You  know  Mother 
would  n't  let  me!" 

"Well,"  he  said,  wearily,  "I  don't  see  what  your 
mother  has  to  do  with  it— if  she  won't  help  you.  It 
was  the  same  way  with  my  father.  He  tried  to  stop 
me." 

She  stared,  fascinated,  at  this  daring  suggestion  of 
revolt. 

In  the  pause  of  silence  he  found  himself  tired  of  the 
whole  discussion.  The  morning's  walk  had  fatigued 
his  body,  and  the  strain  of  the  morning's  expectation 


THE  VISIONARY  317 

had  fatigued  his  mind.  He  felt  the  difference  between 
those  morning  fancies  and  this  talk  of  the  merely  sor 
did  problems  of  life.  He  said :  ' '  Well,  when  shall  I  see 
you  again?" 

"You  're  not  going?"    she  cried,  as  he  stood  up. 

"I  ought— to  go  back.    I  have  things  to  do." 

"Oh  please  don't  leave  me  like  this!  What  am  I 
to  do?  You  have  n't  told  me  what  to  do!" 

"I  wish  I  knew.    I  don't  seem  to  be  able—" 

"But  you  must,"  she  insisted,  giving  way  to  her 
panic.  "What  am  I  to  do?  I  must  get  something.  I 
can 't  go—  You  don 't  want  me  to  go  home,  do  you  ? ' ' 

He  shook  his  head,  looking  dully  at  the  carpet.  "I 
don't  seem  to  be  able — " 

"You  had  plans  enough  once,"  she  cried.  "The 
day  you  got  me  into  trouble  with  Mrs.  Kimball— 

The  memory  of  that  afternoon  under  the  pine  re 
turned  to  him  with  bitterness.  ' '  Yes, ' '  he  said.  ' '  But 
it  was  different  then." 

"How  was  it  different?" 

"You  were  different." 

"Thank  you!"  There  were  indignant  tears  in  her 
eyes.  "I  might  have  expected—  You—  Oh!"  She 
turned  with  a  gesture  that  recalled  to  him  their  part 
ing  at  the  gate— on  the  day  she  had  told  him  of  her 
quarrel  with  Mrs.  Kimball — and  she  was  out  of  the 
room  before  he  could  speak.  He  followed  her  to  the 
hall  in  time  to  see  her  reach  the  landing  of  the  floor 
above.  He  put  on  his  hat  and  went  out  to  the  street. 

There  he  found  a  loneliness  of  soul  so  calm  and  so 
self-centered  that  the  whole  city  seemed  to  hush  to  let 


318  DON-A-DREAMS 

him  pass.  It  was  not  that  she  had  quarrelled  with  him, 
for  in  the  mood  that  had  overtaken  him  he  was  indif 
ferent  to  her  anger ;  and  it  was  not  that  he  did  not  love 
her  as  passionately  as  ever,  though  there  was  a  despair 
of  love  in  his  thought.  It  was  merely  that  he  had 
found  her  separated  from  him  by  that  space  of  mental 
isolation  which  seems  to  divide  every  one  person  from 
every  other,  the  cold  interplanetary  space  which  sur 
rounds  what  we  call  souls  and  separates  them  as 
eternally  as  the  worlds  of  the  solar  system.  He  had 
found  her  a  centered  identity  following  an  orbit  of 
thoughts  and  interests  within  which  she  saw  him  revolv 
ing,  drawn  by  a  superior  attraction.  Love  might  bring 
them  a  little  nearer  together ;  he  felt,  now,  that  it  could 
never  really  merge  them  in  an  absolute  unity  of  inter 
est  and  outlook.  And  this  old  tragedy  of  affection  had 
come  on  him  with'  a  deadening  chill  of  banishment  and 
desertion. 

He  told  himself  that  he  must  find  her  something  to 
do.  He  assured  himself  that  he  would  do  so.  But  he 
knew  that  whether  he  succeeded  in  that  endeavor  or 
failed  in  it,  whether  she  remained  in  New  York  or  went 
away,  whether  he  won  her  or  lost  her  for  life,  she  would 
be,  always,  as  she  was  now,  a  fellow-human  looking  out 
at  him  from  the  closed  chamber  of  her  identity  as  he 
looked  out  at  her.  He  was  alone  in  the  wiorld— alone 
even  with  her.  He  might  help  her  and  love  her,  as  he 
might  love  and  help  anybody;  but  he  could  not  share 
with  her  his  imprisonment  in  being.  The  walls  were 
up  between  them.  They  spoke  through  grated  win 
dows—which)  Death,  at  last,  would  close. 


THE  VISIONARY  319 

WITH  this  mood  of  pessimism  still  heavy  on  him,  he 
returned  to  the  apartment,  feeling  himself  strangely 
alien  in  those  familiar  surroundings.  He  threw  his 
overcoat  and  his  hat  on  the  cot  in  the  dining-room, 
reminding  himself,  as  if  with  an  effort,  that  it  wlas  the 
cot  which  he  had  brought  out  for  Walter  Pittsey  and 
had  never  taken  back  to  the  room  in  which  the  other 
two  boys  slept ;  and  it  seemed  that  the  incidents  of  that 
night  had  occurred  a  long  time  ago.  Conroy  was  sit 
ting  with  his  head  and  arms  on  the  table,  apparently 
dozing.  Bert  Pittsey  was  busy  in  the  little  kitchen, 
from  which  there  came  an  odor  of  scorched  fat. 

"Hello,  you  noble  Thespian,"  he  greeted  Don. 
"Give  us  an  impersonation  of  a  man  setting  a  table, 
will  you?  My  hands  are  full." 

"What  's  the  matter  with  Mm?" 

Pittsey  laughed.  "He  's  tired.  He  has  had  a  hard 
day." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"His  money  came  this  morning." 

Don's  isolation  had  raised  him  above  fellow-sym 
pathy,  like  a  judge.  He  walked  deliberately  around 
the  table,  and  putting  a  hand  on  Conroy 's  head  he 
rolled  it  over  on  the  arm  to  look  at  the  boy's  face.  It 
was  the  flushed  and  bloated  face  of  semi-drunkenness. 
' '  Ach ! "  he  said,  with  a  shudder  of  disgust. 

Conroy  roused  himself,  blinking.     "What  's  the — 

"Get  up  out  of  that!" 

He  glared,  his  eyes  inflamed  and  still  befogged  with 
sleep.  "What  's  chewing  youl" 

Don  turned  his  back,  without  replying,  and  went  to 


320  DON-A-DREAMS 

the  pantry  for  the  dishes.  ' '  We  want  to  set  the  table, ' ' 
Pittsey  explained  pacifically.  ' '  Your  dinner  's  ready. ' ' 

Conroy  mumbled  that  he  did  not  need  any  dinner, 
and  went  grumbling  to  the  bedroom.  Don,  as  he  laid 
1  the  table,  heard  him  splashing  water  in  the  wash-basin. 
They  sat  down  to  their  meal  without  him ;  and  Pittsey 
was  carving  the  burned  steak,  in  the  gloom  of  Don's 
silence,  when  Conroy  came  out  of  the  bedroom  and  con 
fronted  his  cousin  across  the  table. 

"The  next  time  you  put  your  hands  on  me,"  he 
threatened,  "you  '11  get  into  trouble." 

Don  did  not  look  at  him.  "Go  away,"  he  said.  "I 
don 't  want  to  talk  to  you. ' ' 

"No!  Don't  you?  Oh?  Well,  I  want  to  talk  to 
you!" 

"You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself.  What  would 
Aunt  Jane  say  if  she— or  Uncle  John — ' ' 

"You  mind  your—" 

"Making  a  drunken  brute  of  yourself.  You  're  a 
disgrace.  It  makes  me  sick  to  see  you."  The  blood 
went  to  his  head,  in  a  blinding  passion.  "You  ought 
to  be  locked  up  somewhere !  Drinking !  You  have  n  't 
done  a  thing  but  drink  since  you  came  back  here — get 
ting  worse  every  day — brutalizing  yourself.  Where — 
where  do  you  think  this  is  going  to  end  ?  In  the  gutter ! 
On  the  streets !  The  town  drunkard !  In  jail !  You  're 
growing  worse  every  day— worse!  You  're— " 

"Here!"  Pittsey  thrust  a  plate  into  Don's  hanus. 
"What  's  the  use  of  starting  a  row.  Sit  down  and  eat 
your  dinner.  Have  some  sense  about  you." 

Conroy  took  a  long  breath,  his  anger  checked  by 


THE  VISIONARY  321 

i 

Don's  unexpected  attack  on  him.  "What  do  you  think 
of  that?"  he  appealed  to  Pittsey.  "Is  n't  that — 
Is  n't  it?  G—  !  If  you  'd  heard  your  father  talking 
about  you,  going  home  on  the  train!  You!"  He 
pointed,  his  hand  shaking.  ' '  The  supe  !  Gee !  If  your 
father-" 

Pittsey  took  him  by  the  arm.  "For  Heaven's  sake, 
cut  it  out.  Sit  down  and  eat  your  dinner." 

"I  'm  not  saying  anything,"  he  protested,  as  Pitt 
sey  forced  him  into  his  chair.  "It  's  that  sup  ing 
sneak.  Shut  him  up." 

"Go  on  and  eat  your  dinners,  both  of  you— before 
it  turns  cold.  Here !  Get  busy  with  this. ' ' 

But  peace  was  not  to  be  so  easily  restored.  Conroy 
alternately  worried  his  steak  and  attacked  his  cousin, 
who  ate  in  a  silence  of  evident  contempt  and  disgust. 
Pittsey  spread  a  newspaper  beside  his  plate  and  read 
it,  satisfied  that  the  quarrel  would  subside  now  that 
Don  was  quiet.  Conroy  continued  intermittently  to 
point  the  moral  that  if  he  had  disappointed  his  father, 
Don  had  done  as  much  and  more.  "You  ought  to  hear 
what  they  say  about  you  at  home !  With  your  mother 
sick  in  bed  from  worrying  about  you,  and  your  father 
ashamed  to  hear  you  mentioned !  You  're  a  great  one 
to  talk,  you  are!  .  .  .  Sup  ing,  on  the  stage  with  a 
lot  of  chorus  girls.  I  have  n't  fallen  as  low  as  that, 
any  way.  .  .  If  you  had  left  me  alone  before, 
there  'd  have  been  no  trouble.  Sneaking  home  letters 
about  me.  I  told  them  what  you  were— borrowing 
money,  and  playing  the  cad  to  get  rid  of  me. ' ' 

"Oh  drop  it,"    Pittsey  said,  turning  his  paper. 
21 


322  DON-A-DREAMS 

"I  won't  drop  it!  He  started  it.  The  snivelling 
codfish." 

He  went  on,  in  the  same  strain,  endlessly.  Don  did 
not  speak  until  he  had  finished  his  meal.  Then  as  he 
rose  to  get  his  pipe,  he  said:  "I  want  you  to  under 
stand  that  I  'm  not  going  to  be  a  party  to  any  more 
of  this.  If  you  intend  to  live  like  a  beast,  your  father 
shall  know  of  it,  I  '11  not  help  conceal  it  any  longer. 
.  .  .  And  what  's  more,"  he  broke  out,  "I  won't 
live  with  it  myself.  I  'd  as  soon  live  in  a  bar  room. 
1  can't  and  I  won't!  You  '11  behave  yourself  or  I  '11 
write  to  Uncle  John  and  get  out  of  here  altogether." 

"Well,  say,"  Conroy  sneered,  "we  '11  miss  you, 
won't  we?  You  can  get  out  of  here  just  as  quick  as 
you  please.  If  you  don't,  /  will !" 

Don  waved  his  hand  excitedly.  "That  's  all  right. 
I  '11  go.  You  may  roll  in  the  gutter  if  you  like  it. 
You  '11  not  splash  me  with  your  mud  any  more. ' ' 

Pittsey  rose  to  check  him.  Don  reached  his  hat  and 
coat.  "That  's  enough  now,  Bert,"  he  said.  "I— I  '11 
move  out  my  things  to-morrow  morning.  I  've  had 
enough.  It  's  been  impossible  for  me  to  live  here,  ever 
since  he  came  back.  I  can't  live  this  way,  and  I 
won't." 

He  went  out  to  the  street  again,  like  a  poet  to  soli 
tude.  Everyone  misjudged  him,  quarrelled  with  him, 
or  was  disappointed  in  him.  He  admitted  that  the 
cause,  no  doubt,  was  in  himself ;  but  he  could  not  change 
himself.  He  could  not,  for  example,  continue  to  be  a 
silent  spectator  of  Conroy 's  downfall  and  make  a  joke 
of  it,  as  Pittsey  could.  He  would  write  his  uncle  so, 
and  be  done  with  the  whole  worry.  He  would  take  a 


THE  VISIONARY  323 

room  where  he  might  live  alone,  as  he  had  lived  at  col 
lege.  He  saw  himself  in  a  garret  that  was  lamp-lit  and 
peaceful,  with  the  frost  on  the  windows  and  nothing 
but  the  sloping  roof  between  him  and  the  stars.  He 
would  have  his  plays  to  work  on— his  books  to  read — 
Margaret  to  think  of.  He  would  have  her,  there,  as 
she  had  been  before  this  change  in  her.  She  could  not 
rob  him  of  that  past,  of  the  memory  of  her  and  the  o\d 
ideal;  he  could  live  with  that,  as  he  had  been  living. 
It  was  enough.  It  was  the  better  part.  He  was  alone 
in  the  world ;  they  were  all  strangers  to  him ;  he  would 
escape  them  and  be  happy. 

HE  did  not  call  on  Margaret  in  the  morning.  He  wrote 
his  letter  to  his  uncle,  and  went  out  to  look  for  a  room. 
And  he  found  one  in  an  old  red-brick  house  that  had 
been  built  in  the  days  when  this  part  of  the  city  was 
Greenwich  village. 

The  landlady,  who  was  the  wife  of  a  police  sergeant, 
lived  on  the  first  floor  and  rented  the  rest  of  her  house. 
The  back  room  on  the  top  story  had  the  sloping  roof 
and  the  dormer  window  for  which  Don  had  been  long 
ing;  it  had  also  a  little  iron  bed  with  a  mattress  that 
was  still  dented  from  the  weight  of  its  former  occu 
pants,  and  a  "Franklin"  grate-stove  that  had  warmed 
a  long  procession  of  young  art  students,  writers  and 
poor  Bohemians  through  the  first  bitter  winters  of 
their  struggles  in  New  York.  ' '  There  never  was  a  finer 
stove  to  broil  a  chop  into,"  the  woman  said,  "er  a  slice 
o'  toast.  An'  yuh  can  get  a  good  meal  any  time  aroun' 
the  corner  to  the  rest 'runt. " 

She  asked  four  dollars  a  week  rent,  but  when  she 


324  DON-A-DREAMS 

found  that  Don  could  not  take  the  room  at  such  a  price, 
she  let  him  have  it  for  $2.50,  on  condition  that  he  sup 
ply  his  own  towels  and  bedding. 

"I  'm  givin'  't  to  yuh  fer  less  than  I  w'u'd  to  any 
other  livin'  soul  alive,"  she  said.  And  Don  thanked 
her  with  all  the  gratitude  of  innocence. 

In  an  "express"  wagon  drawn  by  a  broken-kneed 
white  horse,  he  moved  his  trunk,  his  share  of  the  bed 
ding,  a  kitchen  chair  and  some  cooking  utensils.  He 
settled  his  accounts  with  Pittsey,  who  said  nothing 
either  in  blame  or  regret.  Then  he  went  in  peace  to  eat 
his  luncheon  in  the  "rest 'runt"  which  Mrs.  McGahn 
had  recommended. 

It  was  that  little  French  resort  of  unsuccessful  Bo 
hemians  which  used  to  be  known  to  New  York  by  the 
significant  name,  "The  Cafe  of  Failures,"  because  of 
its  clientele. 


Ill 


FORTIFIED  by  a  bowl  of  watery  soup  and  a  tasteless 
fricassee  of  chicken,  he  started  out  to  call  on  Margaret, 
more  hopeful  of  the  success  of  his  relations  with  her 
since  he  had  solved  his  other  problems  of  intercourse 
by  the  simple  process  of  elimination ;  and  as  he  walked, 
he  dramatized  a  scene  of  apologies  and  explanations, 
in  which  he  would  plead  that  he  could  better  help  her 
now  that  he  could  give  his  whole  time  to  her,  and  she— 
instead  of  criticising  and  accusing  him— would  discuss 
her  situation  in  a  friendly  confidence  that  would  be 


THE  VISIONARY  325 

wholly  encouraging.  Her  smile — that  had  lost  none  of 
its  dimples— would  lose  its  suggestion  of  superiority; 
instead  of  looking  at  him  with  the  open  gaze  which 
promised  nothing  because  it  concealed  nothing,  she 
would  return  to  the  girlish  shy  glance  that  was  so  dear 
to  his  memory.  She  would  recognize  his  greater  experi 
ence  of  life  and  defer  to  him.  She  would  accept  his 
more  cheerful  outlook  on  the  future  and  be  willing  to 
continue  her  search  for  employment  without  this  rasp 
ing  anxiety  which  made  such  a  discord  of  their  friend 
ship. 

He  found  himself,  unexpectedly,  at  her  door.  The 
smiling  maid  let  him  in,  amused  by  the  frequency  of 
his  visits.  He  waited  in  the  familiar  parlor,  awakened 
to  apprehension  by  the  approach  of  a  meeting  for  which 
he  suddenly  found  himself  quite  unprepared. 

When  Margaret  appeared,  silently,  in  the  doorway, 
he  rose,  startled;  for  she  had  the  pale  and  set  face  of 
an  actress  entering  upon  the  stage  again  after  the  climax 
of  a  tragedy.  She  looked  at  him,  looked  away  from 
him,  and  crossed  in  front  of  him  to  give  him  her  back 
from  the  window. 

The  silence  that  ensued  seemed  to  him  an  hour  long. 

He  began  bravely:  "I  wanted  to  explain.  I  had 
been  worried— worried  about  Conroy— and  about  other 
things.  I  had  n't  had  time,  scarcely,  to  think— to  plan 
for  you;  and — " 

"You  need  n't  trouble  yourself,"  she  put  in.  "I  'm 
going  home." 

He  took  a  step  toward  her  and  stopped,  helplessly. 
There  was  an  anguish  of  disappointment  in  his ' '  Why  ? ' ' 


326  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Mother  has  written  me."  She  did  not  turn  around. 
"She  has  n't  even  enough  money  to  come  for  me.  She 
could  only  send  me—"  He  quivered  at  the  choke  in 
her  voice —  "my  railroad  ticket.  She  can  get  me  a 
place  in  the  Saint  Katherine's  School  for  Girls,  teach 
ing  music. ' '  She  added,  bitterly :  ' '  And  deportment ! ' ' 

"Don't  go." 

"What  else  can  I  do?"  she  cried,  facing  him  with 
the  accusation  of  her  tears.  "I  can't  stay  here.  You 
— No  one — " 

' '  I  will, ' '  he  pleaded.  ' '  Don 't  go.  Give  me  a  chance. 
Come  and  see  Kidder  with  me.  Take  anything— until 
we  find  out.  This  sort  of  thing  can't  be  done  in  a  day. 
Take  it  until  we  can  get  something  better." 

"Take  what?" 

"The  'extra'  work—like  Miss  Morris.  It  '11  only 
be  five  or  six  dollars  a  week,  but  it  '11  help  pay  ex 
penses  until—  I  have  lots  of  money.  Don't  go.  I— 
It  '11  be  the  end  of  everything."  Her  silence  embold 
ened  him.  "I  've  been  waiting  here  for  you.  I  knew 
you  'd  come,  to  study,  to  go  on  the  stage— the  concert 
stage.  And  I  've  been  waiting.  That  's  why  I  thought 
this  theatrical  work— would  be  good— to  be  near  you. 
.  .  And  now,  if  you  give  it  all  up  and  go  away,  there 
won't  be  anything  for  either  of  us.  There  's  nothing 
for  you,  up  there,  teaching  music  in  a  girls'  school." 
He  ended,  faintly:  "And  there  's  nothing  here  for 
me,  if  you  go." 

She  replied,  with  some  of  her  old  spirit:  "You 
did  n't  seem  to  care  whether  I  went  or  not!" 

"I  know.     It  has  n't  been—   Everyone  has  been 


THE  VISIONARY  327 

against  me,  worrying  me.  Conroy  was  drinking  and 
quarrelling  with  me.  I  was  worried  about  them  at 
home.  Mother  's  ill  and  they  blame  me  for  it— my 
father  does.  I  did  n't  care,  as  long  as  I  knew  you  were 
coming.  I  would  n't  give  up—" 

"Well,"  she  said,  putting  all  that  aside,  "what  do 
you  think  I  can  do?" 

"You  can  do  what  Miss  Morris  has  been  doing. 
There  's  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of  in  this  extra  work. 
Perhaps  Kidder  can  get  you  in  'The  Rajah's  Ruby' 
with  me.  You  can  go  on  studying  your  music  and  your 
singing." 

"But  five  or  six  dollars  would  n't  pay  my  board." 

' '  That  's  only  the  beginning.  I  'm  getting  ten  a  week 
already.  You  can  work  up  into  some  of  the  smaller 
parts.  Besides,  you  don't  have  to  board.  We— Con 
roy  and  Pittsey  and  I— have  been  living  for  about  five 
dollars  a  week  each,  and  I  believe  I  can  do  it  for  less, 
where  I  am  now." 

She  said,  out  of  her  thoughts:  "It  's  horrible  to  be 
poor ! ' ' 

"It  's  not  as  horrible  here  as  it  would  be  at  home." 

"No."  She  sat  down,  sighing  with  the  inward  ten 
sion  of  anxiety.  "I  'd  do  anything  rather  than  that. 
.  .  .  It  would  be  Miss  Gary's  place.  She  used  to 
be  music  teacher  at  Saint  Kitt's,  and  took  us  out  for 
our  walks,  like  a  governess.  .  .  Who  's  Mr.  Kid 
der?" 

"He  's  the  agent — the  man  who  engages  the  extras. 
We  had  better  go  right  away.  There  may  be  some 
thing  waiting  now." 


328  DON-A-DREAMS 

She  rose,  half  reluctantly,  lingering  at  the  window. 
"I  don't  know  what  Mother  will  say!"  She  ended 
her  hesitation  with  ' '  And  I  don 't  care ! ' '  She  turned 
to  him,  rigid.  "I  '11  have  to  take  the  respon 
sibility  of  my  own  life  some  day.  I  might  as  well 
begin  now." 

He  saw  the  fear  against  which  she  was  fighting. 
"Don't  be  afraid,"  he  said,  pityingly.  "I  '11  help." 

"Yes."  She  glanced  back  at  the  window  that  gave 
a  glimpse  of  the  street,  a  glimpse  of  that  city  of  stran 
gers  in  which  their  struggle  would  be  so  unbefriended, 
their  poverty  so  forlorn.  "It— It  frightens  one  a  little, 
does  n't  it?" 

He  answered,  in  the  same  voice,  with  a  faltering 
smile :  "It  's  worse  when  you  wake  up  at  night. ' ' 

They  looked  at  each  other,  standing  in  a  silence  that 
gave  ear  to  the  muffled  tumult  of  the  street  traffic, 
rumbling  like  the  menace  of  a  surf.  She  sighed  again. 
"Well,"  she  said.  "I  '11  put  on  my  things." 

She  left  him.  He  drew  himself  up  slowly  and  stood 
waiting,  his  eyes  alight,  his  whole  face  alight,  with  an 
emotion  of  defiant  hope  and  tenderness.  Here  was 
the  battle ;  and  he  was  ready  for  it.  It  was  the  world 
against  him,  for  the  prize  of  all  his  dreams.  He  settled 
his  coat  collar  and  drew  a  long  breath. 

When  he  heard  her  coming  down  the  stairs,  he  step 
ped  out  into  the  hall  and  met  her  confidently.  "If 
he  's  not  there  this  afternoon,"  he  said,  "we  '11  be 
sure  to  find  him  in  the  morning." 

BUT  he  was  there— smoking  an  after-dinner  cigar,  with 


THE  VISIONARY  329 

his  hat  side-tilted  on  his  head,  seated  before  his  office 
desk  waiting  for  his  stenographer  to  return  from 
luncheon.  He  received  them  with  a  genial  nod,  with 
out  rising— until  Don  introduced  her  formally;  then 
he  took  off  his  hat  and  held  out  his  huge  hand  to  her 
rather  amusedly.  "Sit  down.  Sit  down,"  he  said. 
"What  can  I  do  for  you,  eh?" 

Don  brought  her  an  office  chair  and  stood  beside  her 
protectingly  while  he  explained  what  Kidder  could  do 
for  them ;  and  Kidder  listened  with  the  grave  air  of  an 
elder  in  a  child's  game.  "Well,"  he  said,  "let  's  see 
now.  Let  's  see  where  we  're  at."  He  took  up  some 
sheets  of  tabulated  reports  from  his  desk,  and  went 
through  them  solemnly.  "Never  been  on  the  stage  be 
fore,  eh?" 

"No,"  Don  answered  for  her.  "We  're —  Is  it— 
We  'd  like  to  be  together  in  'The  Rajah's  Ruby,'  if  we 
could." 

"Uh-huh?"  He  took  up  a  pen.  "About  five-foot- 
eight  or  nine?  .  .  .  Let  's  see,  now." 

His  pen  travelled  down  a  column  of  names  one  by 
one.  He  paused,  reflected,  and  made  a  deciding  check 
mark.  ' '  That  '11  be  all  right.  Report  to  Mrs.  Connors, 
Monday,  at  the  Classic. ' '  He  looked  up  at  the  entrance 
of  his  stenographer.  ' '  Here, ' '  he  said  to  her.  ' '  Trans 
fer  Miss  Delancey  to  rehearsals  for  'The  White 
Feather.'  Miss  Richardson  here—"  He  pointed  over 
his  shoulder  with  his  pen  handle — "takes  her  place 
with  the  'Ruby.'  Same  height." 

"Well?"  He  returned  to  Don.  "Keepin'  warm 
these  days?  The  'Ruby'  looks  like  an  all  season  run, 


330  DON-A-DEEAMS 

don't  it?"  His  desk  telephone  interrupted  him. 
"Yes.  .  .  Yes.  .  .  Right  away.  .  .  Oh,  ten 
minutes.  .  .  Sure."  He  took  up  his  hat  and  his 
cigar  together.  "Take  Miss  Richardson's  signature. 
That  '11  be  all  right,"  he  put  aside  Don's  thanks. 
"I  '11  be  back  in  an  hour,"  he  said  over  his  shoulder 
to  his  stenographer— and  left  them  to  her. 

She  chewed  a  nonchalant  cud  of  gum  while  Margaret 
signed  her  name  on  the  line  that  was  vacant  for  it. 
And  still  chewing,  she  had  returned  to  her  typewriting, 
indifferent  to  them,  before  they  were  aware  that  their 
business  with  her  was  finished. 

"That  was  easy,"  Don  said,  in  the  elevator. 

Margaret  had  her  thoughts.  She  replied  only:  "I 
don't  think  he  's  a  gentleman,  do  you?" 

"Well,  he  's  been  mighty  kind  to  me.  I  don't  know 
what  I  should  have  done  without  him— and  Walter 
Pittsey.  They  have  all — Everyone  has  been  kind  to 
me." 

She  looked  at  him  with  an  expression  which  he  mis 
took  for  incredulity.  He  tried  to  reply  to  it  by  telling 
her  of  his  first  discouraging  days  in  New  York  and  of 
the  aid  that  had  come  to  end  them ;  and  this  recital  was 
a  revelation  of  character  that  was  not  lost  on  her,  any 
more  than  Kidder's  manner  of  receiving  him  had  been. 

She  said,  with  an  unexpected  smile:  "You  have  n't 
changed  a  bit." 

"Did  you  want  me  to?" 

She  looked  back  at  his  interview  with  Kidder.  "No. 
Not  if  it  makes  people  be  nice  to  you. ' ' 

"Well,  all  right  then,"  he  said  gaily.  "I  'm  satis 
fied  if  you  are ! ' ' 


THE  VISIONARY  331 

He  was  full  of  hope,  voluble  of  encouragement,  gal 
lant  with  a  protective  deference  that  was  as  winning 
as  flattery.  He  walked  the  noisy  streets  in  a  devoted 
attention  to  her, that  seemed  to  leave  him  oblivious  to 
everything  else.  Even  when  he  spoke  of  himself,  it 
was  only  to  give  her  his  experience  as  an  aid  to  her  in 
making  her  plans.  And  all  this  single-hearted  and  un 
conscious  devotion  came  appealingly  to  her  in  her  mood 
of  loneliness  and  fear  for  herself. 

They  wandered  about  until  she  was  tired,  and  then 
he  took  her  to  the  galleries  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  art 
dealers,  where  she  could  sit  on  plush-upholstered  seats 
and  talk  of  Europe  and  the  Louvre.  He  confessed  that 
he  had  always  liked  landscapes  with  roads  in  them — 
roads  up  which  you  might  imagine  yourself  walking 
to  a  house  that  just  showed  its  roof  over  a  hill— or  pic 
tures  of  men  and  women  who  were  saying  something 
which  you  could  guess. 

"But  don't  you  like  the  color?  the  poetry?" 

He  studied  the  row  of  landscapes  before  him.  ' '  Yes, 
I  think  I  do.  But  I  like  them  best  when  there  's  some 
thing  to  invite  you  to  get  inside  them  and  explore, 
don't  you  know?" 

"Oh,  you  're  a  Philistine,"  she  teased  him. 

"Am  I?  .  .  .  Oh  well,  never  mind;  you  're  not, 
any  way,"  he  said;  and  he  said  it  with  such  an  inno 
cent  pride  in  her  that  she  could  not  laugh  at  him. 

When  it  was  time  for  her  to  return  to  her  boarding- 
house  for  dinner,  she  faced  the  prospect  of  loneliness 
with  a  reluctance  which  he  was  quick  to  see ;  and  they 
went  together  to  a  little  Sixth  Avenue  restaurant  where 


332  DON-A-DREAMS 

they  ate  fried  oysters  and  potatoes  with  a  daring  sense 
of  freedom  from  conventionality  and  the  restraint  of 
parents. 

"This  is  better  than  Coulton,"  he  said,  smiling 
across  the  small  table. 

"Or  teaching  deportment  in  Saint  Kitt's!"  She 
exaggerated  a  shudder.  ' '  Ugh !  What  a  life ! ' ' 

The  oysters  were  greasily  cooked;  the  restaurant 
smelled  of  a  rancid  kitchen;  the  table  cloth  was  as 
soiled  as  the  waiter's  linen;  but  if  they  were  sensible 
of  these  drawbacks,  the  fact  was  not  apparent.  He  was 
too  happy  to  see  anything  but  her ;  and  she,  obviously, 
enjoyed  his  happiness.  He  kept  his  eyes  on  her  like  a 
courtier,  finding  her  face  even  sweeter  than  when  it 
had  been  more  girlish,  and  dwelling  in  the  unabashed 
friendliness  of  her  smile  without  wishing  it  more 
demure.  He  enjoyed  the  almost  domestic  pleasure  of 
sharing  food  with  her;  and  when  he  recalled  his  old 
vision  of  her  pouring  coffee  at  the  breakfast  table,  he 
blushed  with  a  feeling  of  guilt  in  that  anticipation,  for 
it  seemed  a  treachery  to  her  new  camaraderie. 

To  any  spectator  of  their  dinner,  she  would  have 
appeared  a  merely  pretty  young  woman,  of  a  slight 
and  Puritanic  figure — with  a  suggestion  of  provinciality 
in  her  simple  ruchings  and  her  low  heels — dining 
poorly,  in  a  smelly  restaurant,  with  a  thin,  a  shabby, 
an  amusingly  adoring  young  man  who  might  be  an  ill- 
paid  clerk  and  who  was  certainly  a  stupid  conversa 
tionalist.  The  romance  of  the  situation  was  all  in  their 
own  minds;  as  romance  has  a  way  of  being.  But  he 
felt  that  he  had  won  in  his  first  bout  with  the  world 
that  was  trying  to  separate  her  from  him,  and  this  din- 


THE  VISIONARY  333 

ner  was  to  remain  in  his  history  of  himself  as  wonderful 
as  a  royal  fete,  as  one  of  the  gala  occasions  of  his  life,  as 
an  incident  for  poets,  like  a  wedding  day. 


IV 


HE  came  to  the  evening's  performance  of  "The  Rajah's 
Ruby"  full  of  blissful  and  quiet  thoughts;  and  he 
replied  to  Miss  Morris's  silent  scrutiny  with  the  bare 
announcement  that  Miss  Richardson  was  to  join  the 
company  on  Monday  night.  He  was  unmoved  by  her 
stubborn  insistence  that  he  was  "making  a  mistake." 
He  asked,  cheerfully:  "How?  Why  am  I?" 

She  answered  by  asking  whether  he  had  done  any 
writing  on  his  play;  and  he  had  to  explain  that  his 
quarrel  with  Conroy  had  upset  him,  but  that  now— 
in  his  own  room,  alone  with^his  manuscript — he  would 
be  able  to  give  all  his  time  to  his  ambitions.  The  ex 
planation  did  not  seem  to  satisfy  her,  though  she  did 
not  voice  any  criticism  of  it.  She  asked:  "Does  her 
mother  know  what  she  's  doing?" 

' '  No, ' '  he  said.  ' '  She  's  not  doing  it  as  a  permanent 
thing.  She  's  only  coming  here  until  she  finds  an  open 
ing  for  her  music." 

"You  know,  as  well  as  I  do,  that  she  '11  never  find 
an  opening  for  her  music  in  New  York." 

He  replied  calmly:  "I  know  that  she  can  do  this 
extra  work  until  she  has  time  to  find  something  better. 
That  's  all  she  expects." 

Miss  Morris  said  nothing  more,  and  he  left  her  to 


334  DON-A-DREAMS 

accept  the  situation  as  best  she  could.  But  at  the  mat 
inee  of  the  following  day — which  was  Saturday — he 
made  another  appeal  to  her  to  be  kind  to  Miss  Richard 
son.  "She  has  n't  a  friend  in  town  but  me— and  you, 
it'  you  '11  be  her  friend.  You  know  how  it  is  to  come 
to  strange  work  like  this,  without  any  one  to  tell  you 
anything.  A  word  or  two  from  you  would  mean  so 
much  to  her.  .  .  She  can 't  go  back  home — anymore 
than  you  or  I.  She  has  n't  a  penny  but  what  she  '11 
earn.  They  've  lost  everything.  .  .  I  'm  sure  you  '11 
like  her.  She-" 

"If  I  do  anything  for  her,"  she  broke  out,  "it  '11 
not  be  for  her  sake.  But  I  think  you  're  making  a  mis 
take.  You  're  doing  wrong.  You  should  have  sent  her 
home  where  she  belongs.  She  's  out  of  her  place  here, 
and  neither  you  nor  anyone  else  can  make  her  succeed 
in  it." 

"That  may  be  true,"  he  said  diplomatically,  "but 
it  can't  hurt  her  to  try— and  it  can't  hurt  us  to  give 
her  what  little  help  we  can.  Can  it?" 

She  answered  "No,"  but  with  an  evident  reserva 
tion;  and  what  the  reservation  was,  he  was  to  under 
stand  after  a  conversation  which  they  had  in  the  lawn- 
party  scene,  that  evening. 

She  said:  "I  've  had  an  offer  of  a  good  part  in  a  new 
play  by  Mr.  Polk.  And  I  'm  goint  to  take  it.  I  want 
you  to  wait  until  you  hear  from  me." 

"'Wait'?    I  don't  under— " 

"I  have  some  influence  with  him."  She  did  not  look 
at  him.  "He  is  taking  a  theatre  of  his  own,  to  produce 
his  own  plays,  independently.  There  may  be  some- 


THE  VISIONARY  335 

thing  for  you.  I  think  I  can  get  something  for  you — 
better  than  this  at  least." 

"Oh  say,  you  're— you  're  awfully  kind,"  he  stam 
mered.  "You  don't  know  how  I  appreciate—  I—" 

"Don't—"  '  She  caught  herself  up.  "Don't  thank 
me,  I  mean — not  until  you  see  whether  I  can  do  it  or 
not.  I  want  you  to — to  trust  me;  that  's  all.  I  want 
you  to  believe  that  I  '11  do  anything  to  help  you,  ex 
cept  what  I  don't  think  is  wise  for  you.  I  mean  about 
her.  And  I  want  you— if  you  hear  anything— if  any 
one  says  anything  against  me— not  to  believe  it  until 
you  ask  me. ' ' 

He  was  reminded  of  a  sentence  in  a  letter  from 
Walter  Pittsey  received  several  days  before:  "I 
have  heard  a  weird  story,  here,  about  your  friend 
Miss  M.  and  a  playwright.  How  is  she  ? ' '  But  his  curi 
osity  had  not  risen  to  the  bait ;  he  had  felt  himself  too 
indebted  to  Miss  Morris  to  listen  to  gossip  about  her; 
and  he  had  so  replied  to  Pittsey. 

He  replied,  now,  to  her:  "I  would  n't  believe  any 
thing  against  you,  if  you  told  me  yourself." 

She  did  not  speak.  The  stage  dialogue  was  rapidly 
riearing  the  conclusion  of  their  scene  together.  He 
asked  her  if  he  might  walk  with  her  to  her  door,  after 
the  play.  "Thank  you,"  she  said.  "No."  And  the 
strain  of  emotion  on  her  voice  warned  him  not  to  make 
her  talk. 

They  parted  in  silence,  not  to  meet  again  that  night. 

He  was  sorry  that  he  could  not  overcome  her  hostil 
ity  to  Margaret;  but  since  that  hostility  was  insuper 
able,  he  was  glad  that  she  was  leaving  the  company. 


336  DON-A-DREAMS 

In  spite  of  his  gratitude  to  her,  he  felt  that  there  was 
something  not  quite  open  and  natural  about  her;  the 
very  violence  of  those  emotional  outbursts  which  he 
had  unwittingly  provoked  in  her,  in  the  past,  had  made 
him  uneasy  concerning  the  unknown  depths  from 
which  they  came.  It  was  as  if  she  were  continually 
striking  matches  in  the  darkness  with  a  disconcerting 
suddenness — as  she  had  on  the  evening  of  their  first 
meeting — and  as  suddenly  dropping  the  match  and 
withdrawing  into  the  darkness  again.  She  had  known 
him  for  years,  and  yet  in  all  those  years  she  had  kept 
herself  hidden  from  him.  She  had  never  told  him  any 
thing  of  her  past  with  Polk ;  and  she  had  spoken  guard 
edly,  now,  of  her  "influence"  with  the  playwright.  In 
short,  she  had  repelled  Don  by  her  lack  of  frankness 
in  all  matters  concerning  herself,  though  she  had 
attracted  him  and  bound  him  to  her  by  the  sincerity 
of  her  kindly  interest  in  his  welfare. 

Well,  she,  too,  was  leaving  him  now,  he  thought ;  and 
that  secession  would  eliminate  another  of  his  prob 
lems.  His  life  was  becoming  more  simple ;  it  was  nar 
rowing  down  to  his  relations  with  Margaret ;  it  was  be 
ginning  to  flow  quietly  in  a  still,  deep  stream.  As  he 
walked  home  after  the  play,  under  a  moon  that  looked 
down,  untroubled,  on  the  fretful  street  lights,  he  felt 
himself  walking  towards  peace,  guided  by  that  placid 
hermit  of  the  night,  that  mild  philosopher  of  the  white 
silences.  Its  influence  possessed  him  with  an  unques 
tioning  contentment.  He  felt,  rather  than  argued, 
the  presence  in  the  world  of  an  unseen  Power  for  good 
that  had  led  mankind  from  barbarity  to  civilization 
along  a  progress  of  which  simple  faith  had  been  the 


THE  VISIONARY  337 

blind  compass.  He  felt  at  peace  with  the  world,  at 
peace  with  the  heavens,  at  peace  with  himself.  He 
felt  at  peace  even  with  his  love — content  to  give  all  and 
expect  nothing,  satisfied  to  be  near  her  so  that  he  might 
help  her,  willing  to  wait  without  a  word  of  encourage 
ment,  so  certain  of  his  goal  that  he  did  not  even  raise 
his  eyes  to  see  how  far  it  was  away. 

His  little  room  received  him  like  a  home.  He  kin 
dled  a  fire  of  small  wooden  blocks  which  he  had  bought 
for  two  cents  a  bundle,  from  "Tony,"  the  Italian  ven 
dor  down  the  street;  and  he  warmed  the  dregs  of  his 
breakfast's  pot  of  coffee,  to  drink  it  sitting  on  the  side 
of  his  bed,  holding  his  cup  on  his  knee,  smiling,  like 
a  camper  in  the  wilderness  who  looks  back,  from  the 
rise  of  a  hill,  over  the  difficult  and  tangled  valleys  he 
has  crossed. 

HE  went  to  church  with  her  in  the  morning— to  a  house 
of  fashionable  worship  on  Fifth  Avenue — unconscious 
of  the  fact  that  he  was  no  longer  in  revolt  against  the 
"police  of  organized  religion";  and  he  listened,  like 
a  child  at  the  theater,  to  the  music  and  the  singing  and 
the  literary  eloquence  of  a  minister  who  flattered  and 
smiled  on  his  congregation.  But  when  Margaret  asked 
him  what  he  had  thought  of  the  sermon,  he  had  to  con 
fess  that  he  had  not  heard  it.  "I  was  thinking  of  the 
little  church  at  home,"  he  said.  "I  'm  glad  I  went, 
are  n  't  you  ? ' ' 

"I  '11  not  go  to  that  church  again!" 

"Why  not?" 

"They  judge  you  by  your  clothes.     That  was  some 

sort  of  servants'  gallery  the  usher  put  us  in." 
22 


338  DON-A-DEEAMS 

He  looked  down  at  himself  guiltily.  "I  suppose  I  do 
need  a  new  pair  of  shoes." 

' '  Yes,  and  a  new  hat,  and  a  new  overcoat,  and  a  new 
suit  of  clothes,  and  a  new  necktie  and  a  pair  of  gloves." 

"I  can  get  the  hat,  anyway,"  he  said;  and  he  said 
it  with  such  a  disproportionate  accent  of  hopefulness 
that  she  had  to  laugh  at  him. 

"You  are  certainly  an  optimist!" 

But  when  he  wished  her  to  take  her  midday  meal 
with  him  at  his  French  cafe,  she  said:  "No.  I  'd  feel 
as  if  I  were  eating  your  new  hat.  You  call  for  me 
again  at  half-past  two."  And  she  escaped  into  her 
boarding-house  while  he  was  still  laughing  at  her  little 
joke. 

He  thought  that  he  had  never  been  happier.  It  was 
so  calm  and  so  assured  a  happiness,  derived  from  such 
heart-easing  friendliness,  such  practical  and  smiling 
friendliness,  and  so  dear.  If  it  were  to  continue  all 
liis  life  long,  it  would  be  enough. 

She  was  even  more  practical  in  the  afternoon.  On 
their  way  to  the  Park,  she  made  him  tell  her  about  his 
quarrel  with  Conroy,  about  his  father  and  his  mother, 
about  his  play-writing  and  his  future  plans.  And 
v/hen  he  led  her  to  the  bench  on  which  Miss  Morris 
and  he  had  sat,  beside  the  water — explaining.  "The 
last  time  I  sat  here  I  did  n't  think  I  'd  ever—" 
she  interrupted  him  to  ask :  "  What  shall  I  tell 
Mother  ?" 

He  did  not  know.  He  suggested  that  she  tell  as  little 
as  possible.  "Just  write  that  there  's  a  prospect  of 
doing  better  with  your  music  here  than  at  home. 
Something  may  turn  up  any  day  now.  And  it  's  just 


THE  VISIONARY  339 

possible,  you  know,"  he  hinted  reluctantly,  "that  your 
mother  may  be — that  she  '11  not  object  to  having  you — 
to  letting  you  make  your  own  plans." 

"That  she  '11  be  glad  to  have  me  off  her  hands?  I 
should  n  't  be  surprised. ' ' 

"It  would  settle  all  the  trouble  as  far  as  she  's  con 
cerned.  ' ' 

"I  had  n't  thought  of  that." 

"Then  you  could  take  your  own  time  about  finding 
something  better." 

"Well,"  she  agreed,  accepting  this  easy  method  of 
postponing  her  worries.  "Now  tell  me  what  I  '11  have 
to  do,  meanwhile,  in  'The  Rajah's  Ruby'." 

' '  Miss  Morris  has  left  the  company, ' '  he  said.  ' '  She 
played  with  me.  And  I  'm  going  to  get  the  stage  mana 
ger  to  put  you  in  her  place,  if  I  can.  You  '11  have 
really  nothing  to  do. ' '  He  described  what  there  was  to 
describe  in  her  part.  "We  're  just  to  make  up  the 
background.  It  will  be  all  right.  Don't  worry. 
You  '11  see  to-morrow  night. ' ' 

She  nodded,  sunken  back  in  the  arm  of  the  rustic 
bench,  looking  down  at  the  muddy  lip  of  the  lake 
where  the  fallen  leaves  were  black  in  the  water.  She 
was  not  beautiful  in  the  way  that  Miss  Morris  would 
have  been  in  such  a  pose;  but  she  was  so  ten 
derly  fragile,  with  her  small  shoulders  and  the 
frail  lines  of  her  girlish  figure — so  innocent 
in  the  large  meditation  of  her  eyes,  so  appeal- 
ingly  unprotected  and  so  sweet— that  Don  turned 
away  from  the  sight  of  her,  trembling  with  a 
new  sense  of  the  fearful  and  delicious  privilege  of  be 
ing  the  only  barrier  between  her  and  adversity. 


340  DON-A-DREAMS 

"I  must  find  a  room  at  once,"  she  said.  "I  can't 
pay  ten  dollars  a  week  board. ' ' 

He  mastered  a  tone  of  commonplace  to  reply:  "I 
think  there  's  one  vacant  in  the  house  that  I  'm  in — 
on  the  floor  below  me.  That  would  be  better  than 
going  to  a  strange  place.  I  could  look  after  you  a  little 
there.  It  should  n't  be  more  than  three  dollars.  I 
get  mine  for  two-fifty." 

"Heated?" 

"No-o.    I  heat  it." 

"Then  you  're  paying  too  much.  I  was  asking  one 
of  the  women  at  the  boarding-house. ' ' 

"Mrs.  McGahn  said  she  .was  giving  it  to  me  for  less 
than  she  would  to  anyone  else. ' ' 

"The  old  blarney!  And  you  believed  her.  I  think 
it  's  /  that  had  better  come  and  look  after  you  a  little." 

"Do!" 

She  laughed.    "What  is  Mrs.  McGahn  like?" 

He  described  the  house  and  its  mistress,  explained 
the  arrangements  he  had  made  for  his  meals,  and  esti 
mated  the  cost  of  them;  and  while  he  talked  his  eyes 
were  fixed  on  the  rosy  promise  of  having  her  under  his 
roof,  and  he  smiled  and  smiled.  When  she  agreed  to 
call  on  Mrs.  McGahn  with  him  that  evening,  to  look  at 
the  vacant  room,  he  accepted  the  future  as  already  a 
thing  accomplished.  "Then  when  you  're  all  settled," 
he  said,  "we  can  get  to  work  in  real  earnest  and  see 
what  we  can  find  for  you.  It  's  always  better  to  wait 
— not  to  accept  the  first  thing  that  offers.  Make  a 
choice  and  take  the  best." 

"To  hear  you,  one  would  think  I  'd  been  besieged 
with  offers." 


THE  VISIONARY  341 

"Well,  perhaps  you  will  be." 

"Yes!  Per-haps!"  She  stood  up,  settling  her  jacket 
at  the  waist  with  spread  hands,  arms  akimbo;  and 
there  was  something  so  intimate  in  this  little  feminine 
attitude  of  the  boudoir,  that  it  came  to  him  as  a  mark 
of  the  unconstraint  of  friendship  at  which  they  had 
arrived.  "It  's  time  we  were  having  our  suppers." 

"Sha'n't  we  have  supper  together?" 

' '  No.  You  must  economize.  Mine  is  paid  for  in  ad 
vance.  You  may  call  for  me  at  seven." 

MRS.  McGAHN  received  them  in  a  parlor  full  of  all  the 
old  furniture  and  all  the  accumulated  bric-a-brac  of 
thirty  years  of  housekeeping.  She  received  them  with 
a  suspicion  which  neither  of  them  understood,  and  she 
listened  to  Don,  staring,  silent,  and  wrapped  majesti 
cally  in  her  black  shawl.  "I  don't  rent  rooms  t'  any 
unmarried  women, ' '  she  said,  ' '  except  I  know  who  they 
is." 

"Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,"  Don  apologized.  "Mrs. 
McGahn,  this  is  Miss  Richardson." 

Margaret  shook  hands  with  her  in  a  manner  that 
evidently  had  some  effect.  She  wavered,  looking  from 
one  to  the  other,  but  she  seemed  still  unsatisfied. 

"Miss  Richardson  is  studying  music  here,"  Don 
explained.  "She  does  n't  wish  to  board  any  longer.  I 
suggested  that  there  was  a  room  empty  here  which  you 
might  let  her  have." 

She  asked  Margaret:  "Where  're  yer — yer  folks?" 

"My  mother  has  gone  back  to  Canada.  We  have 
b'een  boarding.  I  thought  this  would  be  cheaper." 
She  smiled,  amused. 


342  DON-A-DREAMS 

"Well,"  Mrs.  McGahn  defended  herself,  "I  can 
see  yuh  're  decent,  but  I  've  got  to  be  careful,  an'  yer 
comin'  in  on  me  this  way—  Are  y'  all  alone  in  N' 
York?" 

"Yes.  Mr.  Gregg  is  the  only  friend  I  have  here.  We 
used  to  know  each  other  at  home." 

"How  old  are  yuh?" 

"Nearly  twenty." 

"Yes?  Well  now!  Canadyens!  I  thought  they  was 
all  Injuns  up  there." 

"Oh  no,"  the  girl  laughed.    "Not  all  of  us." 

"Have  yuh  been  long  in  N'  York?" 

' '  Just  a  few  days. ' ' 

"Aw?"  She  turned  to  Don,  twinkling.  "Yuh  're 
engaged,  are  yuh?" 

He  said  "Yes,"  and  then  corrected  himself  hastily — 
"Oh  no,  no!" — blushing  scarlet. 

She  glanced  from  one  to  the  other  with  an  illumined 
smile.  "Yuh  're  a  pair  o'  kids.  Come  along,  girl. 
I  '11  show  yuh  the  room." 

Don  was  so  confused  by  his  slip  of  the  tongue  that  he 
did  not  follow  them,  and  they  kept  him  waiting  an 
unconscionably  long  time  for  their  return;  but  when 
they  came,  Mrs.  McGahn  was  blarneying  and  mother 
ing  the  girl  in  a  garrulous  kindness,  and  Margaret  had 
engaged  the  room.  She  and  Don  had  to  refuse  an 
invitation  to  sit  in  the  parlor  and  "chat  a  while." 
"Some  other  night,  then,"  Mrs.  McGahn  said,  follow 
ing  them  to  the  door.  "It  's  open  to  yuh  any  time 
yuh  '11  be  wantin'  in.  He  smokes  in  the  kitchen  when 
he  's  home  at  all,  an'  I  '11  not  butt  in  meself.  Don't 


THE  VISIONARY  343 

be  backward  about  usin'  it.  It  won't  be  the  first  lolly- 
gaggin'  in  there.  Yuh  need  n't  be  a  bit  afeard  o' 
that." 

After  a  self-conscious  silence  that  carried  them  to 
the  street  corner,  they  both,  suddenly,  laughed— an 
apologetic  laugh  that  pretended  to  accept  Mrs.  Mc- 
Gahn's  insinuations  as  absurd. 


LIFE  in  New  York  had  seemed  to  Don  a  sort  of  multi 
tudinous  obscurity  in  which  individuals  were  merely 
atoms  of  a  homogeneous  mass,  living,  thinking  and 
acting  in  groups  of  thousands;  and  it  had  seemed  to 
him  that  death,  there,  would  be  worse  than  death  at  sea. 
He  had  found  himself  walking  the  streets  in  the  midst 
of  activities  in  which  he  had  no  part,  like  a  ghost ;  and 
he  had  been  as  unregarded  as  if  he  had  been  indeed 
invisible.  But  now,  on  this  memorable  Monday,  he  was 
to  begin  acquiring  a  new  point  of  view ;  he  was  to  find 
that  what  had  been  a  desert  to  one  person  could  be  an 
Eden  for  two ;  he  was  to  learn  that  the  indifference  of 
the  city  could  be  as  happy  as  the  indifference  of  the 
fields. 

He  went  with  a  swinging  stride,  from  Mrs.  McGahn's 
doorway  up  the  cold  November  streets,  through  an  iron 
rumble  of  cars  and  wagons,  as  much  alone  with  his 
thoughts  as  if  he  were  walking  on  the  seashore  beside  the 
continual  and  meaningless  rush  and  thunder  of  waves. 


344  DON-A-DREAMS 

He  went  with  Margaret  to  hire  a  cart  for  the  moving  of 
her  trunks,  to  interview  Kidder  about  getting  her  Miss 
Morris's  place  in  the  background  of  the  "The  Rajah  's 
Ruby,"  and  to  see  Mrs.  Connors  at  the  "Classic"  about 
the  costume  for  the  part;  and  in  the  street-cars,  as  on 
the  sidewalks,  they  seemed  shut  in  together  by  the  busy 
unconcern  of  the  city — as  they  had  been  once  by  the 
storm  on  their  umbrella,  long  ago — happy  in  the  isola 
tion  of  their  common  interests.  Even  when  she  forced 
him  into  a  "gents'  furnishing  store"  and  helped  him  to 
choose  a  new  hat,  the  clerk  remained  studiously  indif 
ferent  to  her  coquettish  participation  in  the  purchase 
And  they  ate  luncheon,  in  a  crowded  "dairy  restaur 
ant,"  without  so  much  as  meeting  a  curious  glance. 

"Two  checks,"  she  directed  the  waitress.  He  at 
tempted  to  protest  that  it  was  his  "treat,"  and  that 
her  luncheon  should  be  charged  on  his  check.  She 
said:  "I  '11  never  come  with  you  again  unless  you  let 
me  pay  my  own  way."  He  was  wise  enough  to  leave 
her  that  mark  of  her  independence  withou  any  fur 
ther  argument;  and  she  allowed  him  to  escort  her  back 
to  Mrs.  McGahn's,  where  she  wished  to  spend  the  after 
noon  writing  letters  and  arranging  her  room. 

He  employed  a  vacant  hour  by  strolling  up  the 
Avenue  to  call  on  Pittsey ;  and  he  found  there  a  bitter 
letter  from  his  aunt,  upbraiding  him  for  deserting  Con- 
roy  after  having,  in  the  first  place,  induced  the  boy  to 
run  away  to  New  York.  He  accepted  her  injustice  with 
a  calloused  insensibility.  A  note  from  his  uncle  asked 
him  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  prodigal,  at  least;  and  he 
tried  to  satisfy  the  obligation  by  asking  Pittsey  how 
Conroy  was  getting  on. 


THE  VISIONARY  345 

"Don't  know,"  Pittsey  answered  laconically.  "Don't 
see  much  of  him.  I  'm  taking  a  staff  position  on  the 
paper,  next  week,  and  I  '11  see  less  of  him  then." 

"How  will  you  get  the  housework  done?" 

"Oh,  he  's  found  a  woman  to  come  in  for  three 
hours  a  day,  to  straighten  up  the  rooms  and  cook  us  our 
dinner. ' ' 

"Where  did  he  find  her?" 

"Search  me.  I  don't  know.  I  have  n't  seen  her 
yet." 

' '  Well, ' '  Don  said,  ' '  good-bye.  I  hope  you  have  suc 
cess  on  the  paper. ' ' 

"Thanks.  I  '11  surely  have  my  hands  full.  So 
long." 

Don  returned  to  his  garret,  glad  that  he  was  free  of 
his  old  life.  He  sat  smoking,  with  his  feet  on  the  fender 
of  the  stove,  so  occupied  with  his  thoughts  of  the  girl 
below  him  that  he  did  not  think  to  light  a  fire.  He  lay 
down  on  his  bed,  covered  himself  with  his  overcoat,  and 
fell  asleep  to  dream  of  Coulton.  He  was  wakened  in 
the  darkness  by  her  knocking  on  his  door. 

' '  Hurry !    Hurry ! "  she  cried.    ' '  We  '11  be  late ! ' ' 

THEY  arrived  in  time— thanks  to  the  laughing  haste 
they  made  in  the  restaurant  and  on  the  street— but  he 
found  two  new  supers  in  the  dressing-room,  he  had  to 
show  them  how  to  "make  up,"  and  he  was  kept  so  busy 
helping  them  that  he  had  not  time  to  think  of  her.  He 
was  still  powdering  the  hair  on  his  temples,  to  give  it 
the  grey  of  approaching  middle-age,  when  the  call-boy 
shouted  in  the  door :  ' '  All  up  ! "  And  he  had  to  run 


346  DON-A-DREAMS 

for  the  stage,  pressing  upon  his  upper  lip  his  false 
moustache,  of  which  the  gum  had  not  yet  dried. 

It  followed  that  he  did  not  see  her  until  the  curtain 
had  risen  on  the  act.  He  lifted  his  hat  as  he  ap 
proached  her  in  the  promenade,  but  she  gave  him  a 
frightened  glance  and  tried  to  pass  him  without  speak 
ing;  and  when  he  said  "Don't  you  know  me?"  con 
fronting  her  smilingly,  she  stepped  back  from  him  with 
a  start  of  bewilderment,  bumping  into  the  two  girls  who 
were  behind  her.  He  saved  the  situation  by  stepping  be 
tween  her  and  the  audience.  "All  right,"  he  whis 
pered.  "  Walk  across  the  way  you  were  going.  Didn't 
you  know  me?" 

When  he  had  brought  her  safely  to  the  wings,  she 
stammered  indignantly:  "I — I  thought  it  was  another 
of  those —  One  of  those  men  spoke  to  me. ' ' 

"Who?    Where?" 

"Over  on  the  other  side."  She  pointed  him  out; 
and  Don  recognized  him  as  an  unwholesome-looking 
youth  named  Cousin,  whom  the  other  supers  had  nick 
named  "Delicate  Pete." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"Something  about  it  being  a  fine  day  for  a  walk." 

Don  laughed.    "Perhaps  he  thought  he  knew  you." 

"Well,"  she  said,  with  a  half -humorous  exaspera 
tion,  "I  don't  see  how  he  could.  I  should  n't  know 
myself.  I  feel  like  a  silly,  plastered  up  this  way.  I 
can  hardly  see ! "  Her  lashes  were  thick  with  cosmetique. 
"And  you !  You  're  the  color  of  a  wooden  Indian— the 
ones  they  have  in  front  of  cigar  stores.  I  should  think 
you  'd  feel  perfectly  absurd." 


THE  VISIONARY  347 

This  was  a  point  of  view  which  he  had  not  expected. 
He  felt  himself  shrink  from  the  figure  of  a  Pall  Mall 
dandy  to  something  grotesque.  ' '  You  have  to  put  it  on 
— the  paint,"  he  excused  himself,  his  smile  fading. 
"We  'd  look  ghastly  in  this  light,  without  it." 

She  frowned  out  at  the  sauntering  chorus  in  the 
glare  of  the  calcium  light.  "You  look  worse  than 
ghastly  with  it!" 

That  remark  struck  him  as  rudely  as  a  blow.  When 
he  spoke  again,  it  was  to  say,  in  a  brave  attempt  to 
stand  up  to  the  situation:  "I  guess  ...  it  's  our 
turn  ...  to  cross." 

She  hung  back.  "  D)o  we  have  to  go  out  there  again  ? 
Do  you  think  anyone  in  the  audience  might  recognize 
me?" 

"I  '11  walk  on  that  side." 

She  crossed,  stiff  with  embarrassment,  her  eyes  fixed 
on  the  boards.  "Oh  dear,"  she  said.  "What  do  we 
have  to  do  in  the  next  scene?" 

"Are  n't  you  going  to  like  it?"  he  asked,  in  such  a 
disappointed  tone  that  she  replied:  "I  don't  suppose 
it  matters  whether  I  like  it  or  not.  I  '11  do  it,  any 
way.  ' ' 

They  went  to  and  fro,  several  times,  in  silence,  Don 
crestfallen  and  gloomy,  and  she  regarding  her  unfamil 
iar  surroundings  with  critical  distaste.  "My  gown 
does  n't  even  fit  me,"  she  complained.  He  did  not  con 
fess  that  he  thought  she  was  as  pretty  as  a  bridesmaid 
in  it.  "They  all  look  so  shoddy,"  she  said,  a  moment 
later.  "  It  is  n  't  a  bit  like  what  I  thought  it  would  be. ' ' 
And  when  he  tried  to  turn  the  conversation  by  warning* 


348  DON-A-DEEAMS 

her  to  be  careful  with  her  parasol— that  Miss  Morris 
"got  into  trouble  with  the  stage  manager  for  catching 
it  in  things"— she  asked  abruptly:  "Was  she  like  these 
other  girls?" 

"Why?" 

"Because  she  was  n't  very  nice,  if  she  was.  In  the 
dressing  room—  Well,  they  are  n't  very  nice,  the  way 
they  talk — some  of  them." 

"I  'm  sorry  you  don't  like  it,"  he  apologized  hum 
bly:  "It  's  only  for  a  short  time,  you  know — till  we 
find  something  better.  Besides  some  of  them  I  've 
met  are  not  like  that.  Those  that  are  graduates 
of  the  dramatic  schools—  I  '11  introduce  you  to  some 
of  them.  I  think  you  '11  find  them  better." 

"Well." 

He  piloted  her  through  the  rush  to  the  jeweler's  win 
dow  when  the  alarm  was  given  inside  the  shop ;  and 
after  the  curtain  had  fallen,  he  saw  her  safely  on  her 
way  down  to  her  dressing-room  again. 

In  the  scenes  that  followed  he  watched  her  across  the 
stage,  and  tried  to  smile  encouragingly  when  he  caught 
her  eye.  She  seemed  to  be  getting  on  better;  she  had 
evidently  struck  up  an  acquaintance  with  a  "Miss 
Adara  Doran,"  whom  Don  had  found  to  be— in  spite 
of  her  name — quite  untheatrical  and  rather  pleasant. 
He  began  to  feel  more  hopeful.  Perhaps,  as  she  became 
more  accustomed  to  her  surroundings,  she  would  be 
more  contented. 

While  the  stage-hands  were  setting  out  the  last  prop 
erties  for  the  lawn-party  scene,  he  picked  his  way 
through  the  crowd  of  waiting  supers,  in  search  of  her, 


THE  VISIONARY  349 

eager  to  join  her  so  that  she  might  have  no  difficulty 
in  finding  the  little  table  at  which  they  were  to  sit  to 
gether.  As  he  crossed  behind  the  back-drop,  to  gain 
that  side  of  the  stage  to  which  she  would  enter  from 
the  women's  dressing-rooms,  he  passed  "Delicate  Pete" 
coming  in  the  opposite  direction.  Don  nodded.  There 
was  a  sort  of  defiant  impudence  in  the  smile  Cousin 
gave  him  in  response,  but  he  thought  nothing  of  it  until 
he  turned  into  the  wings  and  came  suddenly  on  Mar 
garet  standing  to  meet  him  in  an  attitude  of  being 
still  at  bay.  The  deadly  paleness  of  her  face  flooded 
with  blood  at  sight  of  him.  She  gasped:  "He— he—  " 
She  blinked  dry  eyes,  staring,  outraged.  "He  said 
something  awful  to  me." 

"The  same  one?  Cousin?  That  same  man?"  He 
scarcely  waited  for  her  feeble  "Yes."  All  the  accumu 
lated  disappointments  of  the  evening  rose  together  in 
him  in  a  rage.  He  hurried  back  after  the  super,  his 
hands  clenched.  He  saw  Cousin  standing  among  his 
fellows,  his  back  turned.  The  others  parted  instinc 
tively,  staring  at  the  wrath  in  Don's  eyes.  He  caught 
Cousin  by  the  collar,  jerked  him  around,  and  struck 
him  a  blow  in  the  face;  the  super  threw  up  his  arms 
blindly;  and  Don  struck  him  three  times,  with  his 
closed  fist,  on  the  mouth,  placing  the  blows  in  a  white 
heat  of  anger  that  made  him  as  clear-sighted  and  appar 
ently  as  deliberate  as  if  the  whole  thing  were  done  in 
cold  blood.  Then  he  threw  Cousin  off,  and  stepped 
back— into  the  grasp  of  the  stage  manager. 

"Get  out!"  He  was  swung  around.  "Get  out!" 
He  was  thrust  into  the  arms  of  a  scene  shifter  who 


350  DON-A-DREAMS 

rushed  him  off  to  the  stairs  and  shoved  him  down  with 
a  force  that  would  have  thrown  him  headlong  if  he  had 
not  saved  himself  by  catching  the  handrail.  The  mana 
ger  followed  him  with  Cousin,  who  was  bleeding  at  the 
nose  and  mouth.  "You  're  both  discharged.  Don't 
either  of  you  come  back  to  that  stage.  Get  your  things 
off  now,  and  get  out." 

Don  hung  up  his  hat  and  coat.  "I  '11  have  to  wait, ' ' 
he  said.  "I  look  after  the  costumes  for  Mr.  Kidder." 

The  stage  manager,  with  an  angry  oath  by  way  of 
dismissal,  turned  and  went  back  to  his  work.  It  was 
the  sight  of  "Delicate  Pete"  bleeding  into  the  wash 
bowl  that  brought  Don  to  a  sense  of  what  had  hap 
pened. 

He  had  been  as  if  poised  above  his  own  actions, 
watching  himself,  in  a  sort  of  double-consciousness  that 
always  came  on  him  in  such  moments  of  excitement; 
and  every  aspect  of  the  swift  instants  through  which 
he  had  moved  had  imprinted  itself  on  his  visual  mem 
ory  as  clearly  as  if  he  had  seen  it  with  the  cool  atten 
tion  of  an  unmoved  spectator.  Now,  all  those  sensa 
tions—Cousin's  impudent  smile,  the  sight  of  Margaret 
drawn  up  to  meet  another  attack,  the  shameful  suffer 
ing  of  her  face — the  eyes  of  the  supers  as  they  fell  back 
in  front  of  him,  the  crackle  of  Cousin's  starched  collar 
in  the  grasp  of  his  hand,  the  blind  movement  of  the 
super's  arms  guarding  his  eyes  while  he  choked  with 
open  mouth,  squirming  to  avoid  the  blows  that  struck 
brutally  on  his  bleeding  lips — the  sudden  roughness 
that  had  seized  Don  himself  from  behind  and  whirled 
him  away  dizzily  and  thrown  him  at  the  stairs  down 


THE  VISIONARY  351 

which  he  stumbled— all  these  sensations,  all  these  pic 
tures  came  back  on  him,  together  with  the  emotions 
which  should  have  accompanied  them,  like  the  recollec 
tion  of  a  drunken  crime  which  now  assailed  his  sober  con 
sciousness  with  a  sickening  poignancy,  vivid  and  revolt 
ing.  He  sat  down  in  a  nervous  collapse.  He  put  his 
elbows  on  his  knees,  his  head  in  his  hands;  the  cold 
perspiration  gathered  on  his  face;  he  shuddered  with 
the  faintness  of  vertigo. 

What  would  Margaret  say?  What  would  Kidder 
say?  Where  would  he  find  work?  His  anger  had 
passed  from  him  like  the  fumes  of  liquor  and  left  him 
sitting  with  these  questions,  in  the  midst  of  the  wreck 
wrhich  he  had  pulled  down  on  himself. 

A  sudden,  violent  blow  on  the  back  of  his  head 
brought  him  to  his  feet  in  time  to  see  Cousin  running 
from  the  room  in  fear  of  pursuit.  He  looked  at  the 
shoe  with  which  he  had  been  struck,  lying  where 
Cousin  had  dropped  it.  He  put  his  hand  up  to  the 
bruise,  and  rubbed  it,  dazed. 

He  was  standing  so,  staring  at  nothing,  when  the 
supers  came  in  at  the  end  of  the  act  and  crowded 
around  him  with  questions.  He  shook  his  head,  like  an 
idiot.  "Tell  Miss  Kichardson  to  wait  for  me,"  he  said. 
' '  Ask  her  to  wait  for  me  at  the  door.  Tell  her  it  '11  be 
all  right.  Tell  her  to  wait.  Tell  her  to  wait  for  me." 

His  message,  and  the  news  that  he  had  been  dismissed 
from  the  company,  came  to  her— through  Miss  Doran 
—in  the  dressing-room,  where  she  had  remained,  too 
hysterical  to  return  to  the  stage.  And  when  Don  had 


352  DON-A-DREAMS 

seen  the  last  of  the  supers'  costumes  on  the  hooks,  the 
room  deserted,  and  the  lights  out — lingering  over  his 
duties  as  if  he  thought  in  that  way  to  postpone  the  fact 
of  his  dismissal — he  met  her  at  the  stage  entrance  with 
such  a  look  of  guilt  and  apology  and  b'roken  appeal 
against  her  blame  that  it  went  to  her  heart  like  the 
sight  of  tears.  "Oh  Don,"  she  cried,  "why,  why  did 
you  bother  with  me  ?  Why  did  n  't  you  let  me  go  home  ? 
I— I  've  only  made  trouble.  I — " 

'Wait,"  he  said,  hurrying  her  out  to  the  refuge  of 
the  darker  street.  "Don't.  .  .  It  's  nothing. 
We  're  all  right." 

She  took  his  arm,  clinging  to  him  as  they  walked, 
neither  of  them  paying  any  attention  to  the  direction 
in  which  they  were  going,  "You  should  n't  have  done 
it.  You  should  have  let  me  go. ' ' 

"No,  no.  It  is  n't  that  It  's  all  right.  I  '11  find 
something  else  with  Kidder.  I  did  n 't  know.  I  did  n 't 
understand  how  it  would  all  seem  to  you.  Miss  Morris 
— I  should  have  known  better  than  try  to — to  associate 
you  with  those  cads.  Miss  Morris  warned  me." 

' '  Ah ! ' '  she  sobbed,  ' '  what  use  am  I  ?  What  is  there 
that'I  can  do  if  I  can't  do  even  thisl  I  was  ungrateful. 
I  said  things  to  hurt  you.  I  did  n't  even  try  to  help 
you  by  being  cheerful,  by  accepting  what  you  got  for 
me." 

"Don't,"  he  pleaded.  "You-" 

She  shook  his  arm,  almost  angrily.  "I  did!  I  be 
haved  shamefully.  And  any  other  girl,  instead  of 
appealing  to  you,  would  have  slapped  his  face  for  him ! 
The  pig!  What  did  you  do  to  him?" 


THE  VISIONARY  353 

"I  struck  him  .     .     .     two  or  three  times  .     .     . 
in  the  face. ' ' 

"And  they  discharged  youf" 

"He  was  bleeding.  They  don't  allow  fighting  on  the 
stage.  They  discharged  us  both." 

"I  don't  care!"  she  cried  defiantly.  "I  'm  glad! 
It  was  no  place  for  you,  either.  You  're  too  good  to  be 
among  such— such  people.  I  'm  glad  it  happened. 
It  '11  do  them  good."  She  added,  in  another  spirit: 
"You  '11  be  able  to  find  something  else  to  do,  won't 
you?" 

"Yes!  Yes!  Of  course!  Kidder  will  find. me  some 
thing.  And  Miss  Morris,  before  she  left,  told  me  she 
would  get  something  better  for  me  in  Folk's  theater — 
Peter  Polk,  the  dramatist.  She  has  some  influence  with 
him.  She  has  known  him  a  long  time.  I  '11  be  all 
right.  It  's  not  that.  It  's  you. ' ' 

' '  Oh  me  I  I  can  go  home  and  teach  deportment.  I 
don't  seem  to  have  sense  enough  for  anything  better." 

"We  must  start  out  to-morrow  morning  and  find 
you  something,  some  way— not  on  the  stage,  I  mean." 

"Why  do  you  bother  with  me?  Always— always— 
I  Ve  disappointed  you.  It  was  my  fault  that  you  left 
college.  Now  I  've  made  trouble  for  you  here." 

He  caught  her  hand  up  against  his  side,  pressing  it 
with  the  arm  on  which  she  had  been  leaning.  ' '  You  're 
— you  're  all  that  made  life  worth  living." 

The  voice  silenced  her,  shamed  her,  oppressed  her 
with  her  unworthiness  and  exalted  her  with  the  sin- 
cerity  of  his  belief  in  her.  It  was  the  voice  of  a  deter 
mined  loyalty,  at  once  so  proud  of  her  and  so  humble 

23 


354  DON-A-DREAMS 

in  its  pride,  that  it  might  have  made  a  queen  worthy 
of  her  throne.  She  looked  out,  with  wet  eyes,  on  the 
street  of  theater  crowds  which  had  suddenly,  at  the 
turn  of  a  corner,  confronted  them  with  its  hansom  cabs 
and  its  cafe  lights  and  its  midnight  gaiety ;  and  she  felt 
herself  uplifted  above  it,  beside  him,  in  the  isolation 
of  a  coinpanionship  so  intensely  realized  that  for  a  be 
wildering  moment  he  seemed  not  a  separate  person  but 
a  part  of  her.  Then  she  drooped  her  head,  like  a  woman 
returning  from  an  altar  rail  where  she  has  received 
the  eucharist ;  for  she  had  indeed,  in  that  moment,  par 
taken  of  the  sacrament  of  love,  and  she  felt  her  emotion 
glowing  through  her  like  a  holy  spirit.  In  that 
moment  the  great  miracle  of  the  young  heart  had 
wrought  its  almost  divine  change  in  her.  From  that 
moment,  she  was  no  longer  a  soul  free  in  the  midst 
of  its  fellows ;  she  had  surrendered  herself  to  the  need 
of  the  man  beside  her,  and,  through  him,  to  the  great 
fraternity  of  human  suffering  and  the  office  of  bearing 
into  the  still  unseeded  future  the  wonder  and  agony  of 
human  life. 

He  felt  the  quivering  of  her  hand  on  his  arm.  "Are 
you  cold?" 

"No,"  she  said  gently.    "Don't  worry— about  me." 

SHE  accompanied  him,  thereafter,  in  a  silence  which 
gave  him  no  hint  of  her  thoughts ;  and  supposing  that  she 
was  silent  because  she  was  despondent,  he  tried  to  encour 
age  her  with  his  usual  assurances  that  everything  would 
"come  out  right,"  that  they  would  begin  their  cam 
paign  "really"  in  the  morning,  that  he  had  done  wrong 


THE  VISIONARY  355 

to  temporize  by  accepting  a  position  on  the  stage  for 
her,  that  he  should  have  "stood  out"  for  something 
better.  She  had  not  the  heart  to  reply  to  any  of  his 
extravagant  misstatements  of  her  case,  for  she  could 
understand  that  he  was  talking  to  keep  up  his  own 
courage;  but  she  said,  at  last:  "Yes,  yes.  It  will  be  all 
right,  of  course.  Don't  worry  about  it  any  more  to 
night.  We  '11  begin  fresh  in  the  morning." 

"You  're  not  thinking  of  going  home?"  he  asked 
timidly. 

"No,"  she  said.  "I  '11  stay— with  you." 

She  said  it  with  an  accent — as  of  resignation — that 
spurred  him  on  to  new  promises.  "You  '11  never  regret 
it.  /  never  have.  It's  hard  at  first,  but  once  you  get 
your  start  made,  you  have  opportunities— opportunities 
that  you  'd  never  find  at  home. ' '  There  was  Miss  Mor 
ris,  for  example:  she  had  made  friends  with  "one  of 
the  most  successful  dramatists  in  America,"  and  he 
had  actually  come  to  her  and  offered  her  "a  leading 
part  in  one  of  his  companies."  There  was  Bert  Pitt- 
sey,  taking  a  staff  position  on  "one  of  the  best  papers 
in  New  York."  There  was  Walter  Pittsey,  at  the  head 
of  a  theatrical  agency  in  Boston,  with  every  prospect 
of  rising  to  a  high  place  among  the  managers  of  the 
"trust." 

Their  street— when  they  turned  into  it— was  empty, 
the  houses  dark.  The  city  seemed  to  be  sleeping  in  an  ' 
immense  contempt  of  their  misfortune,  and  his  voice 
sounded  small  and  impudent,  in  the  optimism  of  a  pig 
my,  the  boast  of  an  impotence  so  inconsiderable  that 
silence  received  it  without  so  much  as  an  echo.  She 


356  DON-A-DREAMS 

said,  at  their  door:  "You  must  get  a  good  night's  rest, 
now.  Don't  worry.  Don't  think  of  it  any  more  to 
night.  Promise  me,  will  you?" 

He  promised  her.  They  tip-toed  upstairs  to  their 
rooms,  careful  not  to  awaken  the  household.  They 
exchanged  a  whispered  good-night  in  the  hall.  He  lit 
his  lamp,  locked  his  door,  and  sat  down  on  the  side  of 
his  bed,  exhausted,  all  his  bravado  gone  from  him,  con 
fronting  doggedly  the  renewal  of  a  struggle  in  which 
he  had  been  beaten  down  to  defeat  after  defeat. 


VI 

"You  should  have  waited,"  Kidder  said  irritably.  "You 
should  have  waited  till  you  had  him  outside.  This  sort 
of  thing  hurts  me  a  whole  lot  with  the  managers,  you 
understand.  They  've  been  raking  me  on  the  'phone 
for  it  this  morning,  and  I  don 't  like  it.  I  can 't  afford 
to  send  up  supers  that  scrap  behind  the  scenes.  You 
ought  've  known  better." 

"I  did  it  without,  thinking." 

"You  ought  n't  to  do  things  without  thinking.  The 
stage  's  no  place  for  anybody  that  does  things  without 
thinking.  And  it  's  no  place  for  a  girl  that  can't  take 
care  of  herself  without  starting  a  row  like  that.  This 
sort  of  thing  makes  a  lot  of  trouble  for  me.  They 
jump  on  me.  They  take  it  out  of  me.  I  don't  like  it." 

It  was  evident  that  he  did  not  like  it.  It  was  evident 
also  that  he  intended  to  make  Don  suffer  for  the  criti- 


THE  VISIONARY  357 

cisms  which  he  himself  had  borne.  "  I  'm  sorry, ' '  Don 
said,  miserably. 

"You  should  n't  have  done  it.  I  had  a  lot  of  con 
fidence  in  you.  I  gave  you  one  of  the  best  things  I  had. 
I  made  a  place  for  this  Miss  What- 's-her-name  too. 
Shoved  her  in  over  another  girl.  And  that  's  a  thing 
stage  managers  don't  like,  either — having  their  com 
pany  broken  up  that  way.  It  leaves  me  open  to  a  lot  of 
hot  roasting— the  whole  business." 

"I  'm  sorry.    If  you  '11  give  me  another  chance — " 

"I  can't  give  you  another  chance  like  that.  I 
have  n't  got  it." 

"Have  n't  you  anything?" 

Kidder  hesitated,  swung  around  in  his  swivel  chair, 
and  began  to  look  over  his  typewritten  lists.  Don 
waited,  as  shamefacedly  as  a  schoolboy  who  has  been 
lectured  before  a  whole  classroom— for  Kidder 's  non 
chalant  stenographer  had  been  rustling  papers  at  the 
other  side  of  the  office.  The  telephone  rang,  and  Kid 
der  left  Don's  fate  in  the  scales  while  he  busied  himself 
witm  more  important  affairs.  When  he  had  hung  up 
the  "receiver,"  he  took  another  glance  at  his  lists,  and 
said,  without  turning  around:  "No.  I  have  n't  any 
thing.  I  'm  filled  up.  I  may  have  an  opening  next 
week,  in  'Appomattox'— I  don't  know.  It  '11  only  be 
fifty  cents  a  night,  anyhow.  I  can  get  lots  of  hobos  for 
these  war  plays.  That  's  all  I  've  got." 

He  returned  to  the  opening  of  his  letters  and  left 
Don  to  take  himself  out  of  the  office. 

Fifty  cents  a  night !  That  would  be,  with  two  mat 
inees,  four  dollars  a  week.  He  was  paying  two  dollars 


358  DON-A-DREAMS 

and  fifty  cents  for  his  room.  The  dollar  and  a  half 
remaining  would  scarcely  pay  his  car  fares ! 

He  did  not  ring  for  the  elevator.  He  walked  down 
the  four  flights  of  stairs  in  some  sort  of  confused  notion 
that  he  could  not  afford  to  ride.  He  faced  the  street, 
appalled.  It  was  as  busy  as  Kidder  with  his  mail. 

When  he  remembered  Miss  Morris,  he  set  out  again 
in  frantic  haste,  almost  running,  his  single  glove  rolled 
into  a  ball  in  his  hand,  his  hat  tilted  down  over  his  eyes 
by  the  bruise  on  the  back  of  his  head,  swallowing  dryly. 
He  came,  breathless,  to  the  steps  of  Mrs.  Kahrle's 
boarding-house.  The  door  opened  a  grudging  crack  to 
him.  ' '  She  ain  't  here, ' '  the  woman  said,  and  shut  him 
out. 

He  found  himself,  instantaneously,  calm.  He  was 
like  a  man  in  quicksand,  who  finds  that  his  panic  is 
plunging  him  deeper,  and  who  stiffens  into  rigidity, 
motionless,  to  wait  for  the  arrival  of  help.  "This  is  all 
right,"  he  told  himself.  "These  things  happen,  of 
course.  We  must  wait.  When  I  see  Kidder  again, 
he  'It  not  be  so  bad-tempered.  It  's  a  matter  of  waiting 
a  few  days.  I  can  write  to  Miss  Morris.  I  can  write 
to  Walter  Pittsey  and  get  his  advice.  I  have  plenty  of 
time.  I  don't  have  to  see  Margaret  for  two  or  three 
hours  yet.  I  must  think  of  something  to  tell  her." 

He  was  as  tired  as  if  he  had  been  running  a  race; 
and  the  worry  and  excitement  had  given  him  a  drag 
ging  ache  in  the  small  of  his  back.  He  found  himself 
shaking  with  cold.  He  buttoned  his  light  overcoat, 
sank  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  went  down  Broad 
way  huddled  in  on  himself  against  the  wind.  He 


THE  VISIONARY  359 

thought  of  the  aid  he  had  once  received  from  his  aunt 
—and  he  remembered  her  last  letter.  He  knew  that 
his  uncle,  appealed  to,  would  advise  him  to  return 
home.  He  had  no  longer  the  companionship— such  as 
it  had  been— of  Conroy  and  Bert  Pittsey  to  help  him. 
Miss  Morris  was,  after  all,  a  doubtful  ally  who  might 
turn  against  him  because  of  Margaret.  He  was  alone 
— as  he  had  so  desired  to  be — in  the  face  of  a  calamity 
that  made  him  feel  the  want  of  friends.  He  was  alone, 
unable  to  help  himself.  And  Margaret  was  depending 
on  him ! 

An  apathy  of  despair  began  to  mute  his  thoughts, 
and  he  struggled  against  it,  with  an  instinct  of  self- 
preservation,  as  if  it  were  a  suicidal  impulse.  "See 
now, ' '  he  told  himself.  ' '  At  this  time  yesterday,  every 
thing  was  going  as  well  as  possible.  She  was  on  the 
stage  with  you.  You  were  both  lodging  in  the  one 
house.  You  were  looking  forward  to  a  winter  with 
her,  to  promotions,  to  gradual  increases  of  salary,  to  a 
future  that  should  grow  from  day  to  day  into  the  great 
est  happiness.  Well,  twenty-four  hours  can't  have 
changed  it  all.  It  's  impossible!  Or  if  one  day  has 
made  all  the  difference,  another  day  can  restore  it. 
What  are  you  afraid  of?  Nonsense!  You  have  come 
through  narrower  squeaks  than  this.  Look  where  you 
were  the  day  you  were  starting  for  New  York— or  the 
day  you  met  Pittsey  on  Sixth  Avenue.  You  had  n't 
even  four  dollars  a  week,  then.  And  she  was  in 
Europe!" 

But  the  situation  was  not  to  be  talked  down.  There 
remained  the  facts  that  he  had  used  up  all  his  savings, 


360  DON-A-DREAMS 

that  his  work  for  Kidder  would  not  pay  his  expenses, 
that  he  knew  of  nothing  which  Margaret  could  do.  He 
came  on  the  forlorn  hope  that  there  might  be  an  impor 
tant  letter  of  some  sort  waiting  him  at  his  old  rooms; 
and  in  another  rush  of  panic-stricken  activity  he  hur 
ried  towards  that  improbability  as  if  it  had  been  the 
most  certain  aid.  He  saw  the  streets  cold,  unfriendly, 
crowded,  as  busy  as  machinery,  and  as  remorseless.  He 
was  always  to  remember  them  in  that  aspect — as  an 
exhausted  swimmer,  struggling  to  reach  shore,  will 
remember  the  horrible  composure  of  level  water  that 
engulfed  his  feeble  agonies  without  so  much  as  showing 
a  shudder  on  its  vast  blank  of  cruelty. 

Conroy  opened  the  door  to  him,  blocking  it  with  a 
challenging  scowl. 

"Are  there  any  letters  for  me  here?" 

"No." 

"Is  Bert  in?" 

"No." 

Don  saw  a  woman's  hat  and  veil  on  the  dining-room' 
table.  He  looked  inquiringly  at  his  cousin;  and  Con 
roy  shut  the  door  on  that  look  as  if  he  considered  it  an 
impertinence. 

Don  turned  towards  his  lodgings,  too  weak  to  drag 
himself  any  further.  He  was  conscious  only  of  the 
physical  need  of  rest.  At  thought  of  the  shelter  of  his 
room,  he  ached,  body  and  mind,  for  the  closed  door  and 
the  bed  that  awaited  him. 

MARGARET,  at  midday,  knocked  to  discover  whether  he 
had  returned;  and  he  put  on  cheerfulness  like  a  mask 


THE  VISIONARY  361 

to  meet  her.  "Are  you  ready  for  luncheon?"  he 
asked. 

"When  did  you  come  in?  There  's  been  a  man  here 
looking  for  you.  He  left  word  that  he  'd  be  back  at 
two." 

"Forme?" 

"Yes,  for  you.  Mrs.  McGahn  said  she  thought  he 
said  his  name  was  'Pitty.'  " 

"Oh."  His  voice  went  flat.  "It  must  've  been  Bert 
Pittsey." 

"What  did  Mr.  Kidder  say?" 

"He  '11  have  a  place  for  me  next  week,  all  right. 
There  's  no  difficulty  about  that.  We  must  find  some 
thing  for  you,  now.  We  '11  talk  it  over  at  luncheon." 

"We  '11  do  no  such  thing,"  she  said.  "I  'm  not  go 
ing  to  have  you  worried  about  me.  I  have  a  plan  of 
my  own.  I  'm  going  to  see  someone  this  afternoon." 

"What  is  it?" 

"I  '11  not  tell  you.  If  you  ask  me  another  word 
about  it,  I  '11  have  my  lunch  alone. ' ' 

"Then  I  '11  not  tell  you  about  Kidder,"  he  said, 
with  a  desperate  affectation  of  gaiety. 

He  felt  like  a  man  who  has  just  learned  that  he  is 
incurably  ill  of  a  fatal  disease,  and  who  returns  home 
to  deceive  his  family  so  that  they  may  be  spared  at 
least  a  few  weeks  of  useless  grief.  He  knew  that  such 
luncheons  as  this  were  numbered ;  and  with  the  reck 
lessness  of  the  condemned  he  coaxed  her  to  have  a  table 
d '  hote  dinner  with  him  at  his  French  restaurant. 
"You  '11  feel  the  need  of  it  before  the  afternoon  's 
done,"  he  said. 


362  DON-A-DREAMS 

"We  ought  to  economise." 

"Well,  let  us  have  one  last  splurge." 

It  was,  after  all,  a  rather  dismal  ' '  splurge, ' '  for  they 
were  both  playing  their  parts  with  an  effort,  and  their 
lack  of  appetite  betrayed  them.  "You  're  not  eating 
anything, ' '  he  accused  her.  She  replied :  "  I  'm  doing 
as  well  as  you."  A  moment  later,  he  came  out  of  a 
staring  abstraction  to  find  her  studying  him.  She 
blushed  and  looked  down  at  her  plate.  He  had  a  guilty 
feeling  that  she  had  read  his  thoughts.  They  received 
their  dessert  in  silence. 

"Have  you  heard  from  your  mother?"  he  asked 
suddenly. 

She  admitted,  with  reluctance,  that  she  had. 

"What  does  she  say?" 

"Now,  I  'm  not  going  to  tell  you,"  she  answered. 
"I  've  told  you  I  'm  not  going  home — and  that  's  all. 
You  Ve  had  worry  enough  about  me.  I  '11  tell  you 
about  it  when  the  proper  time  comes."  She  glanced 
at  her  watch.  "It  's  time  you  were  meeting  Mr.  Pitt- 
sey,  now." 

' '  Where  are  you —  May  I  take  you  to  the  car  ? ' ' 

"Yes."  They  rose  together.  "And  you  're  not  to 
worry  about  me,  will  you?" 

He  shook  his  head,  without  meeting  the  tender  anxiety 
of  her  scrutiny.  And  he  parted  from  her  at  the  steps 
of  an  elevated  station  still  guiltily  averting  his  eyes. 

To  pay  for  their  dinner,  he  had  "broken"  his  last 
ten-dollar  bill.  He  wondered  whether  he  might  bor 
row  a  little  money  from  Bert  Pittsey.  He  supposed 
that  Pittsey  was  coming  to  see  him  about  some  new 


THE  VISIONARY  363 

difficulty  with  Conroy;  and  he- returned  to  his  lodgings 
in  an  empty  despondence. 

As  he  mounted  the  steps  to  Mrs.  McGahn's  door,  he 
saw  that  someone  was  watching  him  through  one  of  the 
front  windows.  As  he  stepped  into  the  hall,  he  saw 
Walter  Pittsey  standing  in  the  doorway  of  the  parlor, 
waiting  for  him.  He  stopped,  incredulous. 

"Well,  Don  Quixote,"  Walter  said,  with  his  usual 
mild  amusement,  "I  hear  you  've  been  slaughtering 
supers. ' ' 

"Why,  where  did  you  come  from?"  Don  cried.  "I 
thought  it  was  Bert!  When  did  you  arrive?" 

He  coughed.  ' '  Come  in  here. ' '  He  took  Don  by  the 
elbow  and  led  him  into  the  parlor.  It  was  Miss  Morris 
who  rose  from  a  chair  beside  the  window  and  came  to 
greet  him  with  her  slow  smile. 

Don  took  her  hand  in  silence,  looking  from  her  con 
spiring  eyes  to  Pittsey 's  and  back  again.  "What  is 
it  ? "  he  asked,  beginning  to  tremble  at  the  expectation 
of  he  did  not  know  what. 

She  said,  teasingly :  ' '  Did  n  't  I  tell  you  to  wait  until 
you  heard  from  me?" 

He  stared  at  the  promise  which  her  words  implied, 
and  her  face  slowly  retreated  from  him  as  if  he  had 
looked  at  her  through  the  wrong  end  of  a  telescope. 
He  was  dizzily  aware  that  the  floor  and  ceiling  of 
the  room  were  working  up  and  down  like  the  top  and 
bottom  of  a  bellows.  He  clung  to  her  hand.  "I  think 
.  .  .  I  'd  better  sit  down, ' '  he  said. ' '  The  floor  's— ' ' 
Pittsey 's  arm  was  around  him.  He  stumbled  towards  a 
chair.  "The  floor  's— " 


364  DON-A-DREAMS 

They  helped  him  to  one  of  Mrs.  McGahn's  horse-hair 
sofas.  Someone  chafed  his  hands.  Someone  unbut 
toned  his  collar.  He  heard  tense  and  anxious  voices, 
in  the  faint  distance.  "I  'm  all  right,"  he  said.  "I 
was  walking.  I  'm  tired.  I—"  His  voice  faded  away 
above  him  as  he  rocked  down  slowly  into  darkness. 

He  came  back  to  consciousness  at  the  chill  touch  of  a 
wet  handkerchief  on  his  forehead  and  the  prickle  of  am 
monia  fumes  in  his  nostrils ;  and  he  opened  his  eyes  on 
a  splitting  headache  that  seemed  to  tear  his  brain. 
"Thanks,"  he  said,  looking  up  at  Miss  Morris  who  was 
bending  over  him.  "I  'm  better,  thanks."  She  put 
back  the  wet  hair  from  his  forehead  and  drew  the  palm 
of  her  hand  caressingly  down  his  cheek.  There  were 
tears  in  her  eyes,  but  before  he  could  be  sure  that  he 
had  seen  them,  she  had  risen  and  Mrs.  McGahn  stood 
in  her  place,  holding  a  pocket  flask  of  liquor  from  which 
Pittsey  poured  a  little  into  a  glass. 

"Swallow  this." 

It  ran  down  his  throat  like  fire.  He  coughed  and 
sputtered,  laughing  almost  hysterically.  In  a  few 
moments  he  was  sitting  up  again,  trying  to  smile  rather 
wanly  at  his  collapse.  Then  they  told  him  what  they 
had  come  to  tell. 

Mr.  Folk's  treasurer  had  written  to  Pittsey  in  Bos 
ton  asking  him  to  take  charge  of  the  "ticket  office  end" 
of  the  new  theater.  "We  used  to  work  together  at  the 
c^d  Academy,"  Pittsey  explained  in  an  aside.  And 
Pittsey 's  influence  with  the  treasurer  had  joined  Miss 
Morris's  applications  to  Polk  to  procure  for  Don  a  posi 
tion  in  the  ticket  office  at  $25  a  week.  "I  saw  Kidder 


THE  VISIONARY  365 

this  morning,  just  after  you  were  there,"  Pittsey  hur 
ried  on,  ' '  and  he  told  me  what  you  'd  been  doing.  I  've 
been  trying  to  connect  with  you  ever  since.  Kidder 
said  I  must  have  passed  you  in  the  elevator  as  I  came 
up." 

Don  shook  his  head,  worried  by  the  pain  behind  his 
eyes  and  by  Pittsey 's  evasive  explanations.  ' '  I  did  n  't 
come  down  in  the  elevator.  I  walked.  I  've  been  walk 
ing  ever  since."  He  straightened  up,  shining-eyed. 
"How  am  I  ever  going  to— to  thank  you  two.  I — " 

"Don't  thank  me,"  Pittsey  interrupted.  "It  was 
Miss  Morris." 

"What  a  story!"  she  said.  "I  had  n't  thought  of 
the  office.  I  was  trying  to  get  you  into  the  company." 

In  the  light  of  gratitude  in  which  he  saw  her,  she 
seemed  even  more  beautiful  than  she  had  ever  been  be 
fore  ;  and  he  looked  at  her  with  an  expression  of  face 
which  made  Pittsey  put  in  hastily:  "The  first  thing 
you  do,  you  buy  a  new  overcoat  and  a  new  suit  of 
clothes.  Kuffman  goes  by  exteriors.  Get  your  hair 
cut  a  la  Manhattan— and  never  let  him  see  you  smoking 
a  pipe. 

"I  need  shoes,  too,"  Don  acknowledged  simply. 

Pittsey  rose.  "I  '11  call  for  you  to-morrow  morning 
and  see  you  outfitted.  Then  I  '11  introduce  you  to  your 
new  'job'." 

"Wait  a  moment,"  Don  pleaded.    "I  want  to—" 

' '  No ;  you  must  go  to  your  room  now  and  have  a 
sleep,"  Miss  Morris  said,  bidding  him  good-bye. 
"I  '11  see  you  to-morrow,  too."  And  disengaging 
themselves  from  Don's  confused  thanks,  they  went 


366  DON-A-DREAMS 

away  together,  waving  to  him  gaily  as  they  turned  on 
the  sidewalk  and  saw  him  watching  them  from  the 
open  door. 


VII 


IT  seems  that  the  sailor  who  survives  a  shipwreck  ac 
cepts  the  fact  of  his  escape  not  as  a  warning  of  the  dan 
gers  of  his  life  but  as  an  assurance  that  they  are  not 
deadly,  and  goes  to  sea  again  with  a  veteran's  contempt 
of  storms.  The  crisis  through  which  Don  had  passed 
did  nothing  to  reform  his  impracticality,  but  rather 
developed  and  confirmed  it.  "Did  n't  I  tell  you  we  'd 
be  all  right,"  he  exulted  to  Margaret,  celebrating  his 
good  fortune  in  an  evening  at  the  theater.  "You  cer 
tainly  did,"  she  laughed,  "but  you  did  n't  look  as  if 
you  believed  it." 

"I  did,  though,"  he  assured  her;  and  he  thought 
that  he  was  telling  the  truth.  ' '  All  the  time,  I  felt  cer 
tain  of  it.  It  '11—  Now  it  's  your  turn.  We  '11  organ 
ize  your  campaign  now,  won't  we?" 

She  nodded,  to  conceal  thought.  She  had  not  told 
him  what  success  her  afternoon 's  quest  had  had,  but  she 
had  admitted  that  her  mother's  letter  had  ordered  her 
home  peremptorily  and  that  she  had  tried  to  make  the 
gentle  reply  that  turns  away  wrath  even  while  it  re 
fuses  obedience.  She  was  doubtful  of  the  issue  of  her 
evasion.  "I  '11  hear  in  a  day  or  two. ' ' 

"Well,  don't  worry,"  he  counselled  her.  "I  have— 
If  you  run  out  of  money,  you  must  let  me  'stake'  you 
until  you  find  what  you  wish. ' ' 


THE  VISIONARY  367 

She  touched  his  arm  to  silence  him  as  the  lights  were 
lowered  and  the  curtain  rose ;  and  she  let  her  hand 
remain  on  his  sleeve  either  absent-mindedly,  or  as  an 
applogy  for  turning  from  him,  or  merely  as  a  sort  of 
place-mark  in  their  conversation,  like  a  finger  on  the 
page  of  an  interrupted  reading.  It  was  to  Don  the 
tingling  pole  of  an  emotion  that  quivered  through  him 
electrically;  he  sat  rigid,  for  fear  that  his  slightest 
movement  might  break  the  current  coming  to  him  out 
of  the  darkness  in  a  circuit  of  friendship  and  sympathy 
that  joined  her  to  him  among  all  these  strangers, 
secretly,  like  the  hidden  clasp  of  fingers.  When,  at 
length,  she  drew  back  slowly,  he  relaxed  to  an  easier 
position  with  a  sigh. 

The  play  was  a  "costume  drama"  in  which  the  love 
of  a  court  beauty  caused  duels  and  intrigues  and  vari 
ous  dissensions  among  gentlemen  in  perukes  and  satin 
smalls ;  and  Don  listened  and  watched  with  his  soul  in 
his  eyes.  It  inspired  him  with  the  desire  to  do  great 
deeds,  to  be  famous,  to  live  a  colored  and  wonderful 
life.  It  filled  him  with  high  desires  of  love  and  mag 
nanimity.  It  raised  him  above  the  sordid  common 
places  of  his  commercial  days.  It  intoxicated  him  with 
that  wine  of  romance  which  makes  the  historical  novel 
the  cordial  bottle  of  a  shop-wearied  civilization.  Be 
tween  the  acts,  to  the  quickened  sympathy  of  the  girl 
beside  him,  he  freed  himself  of  an  almost  vinous  need 
of  confiding  to  someone  his  ambitions,  his  vague  plans, 
his  shy  hopes  of  a  future  as  a  playwright,  laughing  at 
himself  tentatively  but  touched  to  find  that  she  did  not 
laugh  too.  "I  never  had  a  chance  to  work  before,"  he 
said.  "I  have  always  been  worried — by  all  sorts  of 


368  DON-A-DREAMS 

things— and  upset.  Now,  with  twenty-five  dollars  a 
week,  and  lots  of  time  to  myself,  I  '11  be  able  to  do 
something — something  worth  while."  And  on  their 
way  back  to  their  lodgings — all  his  worries  untangled, 
and  his  future  as  straight  and  level  as  the  street  before 
him — he  walked  with  her  on  his  arm,  as  stiffly  as  a 
schoolboy  who  marches  beside  the  music  of  a  military 
band,  almost  strutting,  his  face  stern  with  ambition  and 
as  pale  as  if  the  shock  and  glory  of  battle  were  await 
ing  him  at  the  foot  of  the  street. 

WALTER  Pittsey  took  him,  in  the  morning,  to  be  "out 
fitted,"  and  lent  him  money  for  his  purchases,  and 
advised  him  on  the  styles  with  the  experience  of  a  man 
to  whom  the  art  of  economical  good  dressing  has  been 
a  study.  Pittsey  knew  where  to  find  ready-made  cloth 
ing  that  could  not  be  known  from  tailor-made ;  he  chose 
a  necktie  with  deliberation ;  he  spent  an  hour  in  search 
of  an  overcoat  that  should  fill  out  Don's  shoulders  and 
still"  preserve  the  distinction  of  his  lean  height ;  he  made 
Don  try  on  several  different  styles  of  shoes,  frowning 
and  shaking  his  head  as  he  studied  over  them;  and 
when  he  had  finished,  Don,  for  thirty  dollars,  was 
apparently  a  young  gentleman  of  fashion  dressed  in 
the  faultless  simplicity  of  quiet  good  taste.  "Now," 
Pittsey  said,  "I  've  noticed  that  you  have  the  English 
trick  of  saying  'sir'  to  your  elders.  You  had  better 
cut  it  out  with  Kuffman;  he  does  n't  understand  that 
sort  of  thing,  you  know.  Just  behave  with  him  as  you 
did  with  Kidder,  at  first— as  if—  Well,  I  suppose  if 


THE  VISIONARY  369 

you  were  conscious  of  it,  you  could  n't  do  it.  But 
don't,  for  anything,  let  him  think  you  need  the  'job'." 

The  warning  was  not  necessary ;  for  Don  was  already, 
unconsciously,  playing  the  part  for  which  his  clothes 
had  made  him  up.  He  had  luncheon  with  Pittsey,  and 
he  accepted  the  assiduous  deference  of  the  waiter  with 
a  pleasant  condescension.  He  accepted  Kuffman,  as 
he  had  accepted  Kidder,  in  that  boyish  indifference  of 
disinterest  which  had  impressed  the  supers'  agent.  He 
was,  in  fact,  content  to  leave  all  intercourse  with  Kuff 
man  in  Pittsey 's  hands.  And  since  the  ticket  office 
was  to  be  opened  on  the  morrow,  he  was  able  to  devote 
himself  to  helping  Pittsey  arrange  the  tickets  in  the 
pigeon-holed  case  beside  the  grated  window,  while  he 
listened  attentively  to  the  instructions  which  Pittsey 
gave  him  concerning  his  small  duties  as  relief  man  at 
the  wicket  during  the  "off"  hours. 

"You  '11  have  to  remember  that  you  're  a  nickel-in- 
the-slot  machine,"  Pittsey  counselled,  "and  nothing 
more.  The  person  outside  puts  in  his  money  and  gets 
his  ticket.  Never  talk.  Answer  questions  politely,  but 
that  's  all.  It  's  the  only  way  to  do  the  work.  Never — 
never — never  talk  to  anyone  through  those  bars." 

Kuffman,  who  was  one  of  those  fat  men  that  over 
dress  like  dowagers,  came  into  the  office  to  give  final 
directions  about  the  tickets  that  were  to  be  placed  for 
sale  at  various  hotel  desks ;  and  he  asked  Don  suddenly : 
"Where  did  you  get  the  necktie?" 

Don  turned,  in  his  embarrassment,  to  Pittsey. 
"Where  did  we  get  it?" 

24 


370  DON-A-DREAMS 

Pittsey  coughed  deliberately.  "  Do  you  like  it  ?  I 
have  the  mate  to  it.  We  saw  them  in 's  win 
dow"— He  named  a  fashionable  haberdasher— "  and 
I  bought  one  myself." 

Kuffman  admired  the  tie  in  silence  and  went  out. 
"  Here,"  Pittsey  said,  opening  his  pen-knife,  "  you  'd 
better  cut  the  label  off  that  tie.  And  the  next  time  he 
asks  you  about  your  clothes  don't  turn  to  me  as  if  I 
were  your  valet." 

Don  obeyed  him,  bewildered.    "  Why  did  he  ask  me  ? " 

"I  suppose  because  he  wanted  to  know." 

"But  you  did  n't  tell  him." 
"Oh,  'get  wise,'  "  Pittsey  laughed.    "  'Get  wise.'  " 

There  were  to  be  other  incidents  of  a  like  nature  in 
Don's  ticket-office  experience,  but  they  did  not  seem  to 
increase  his  stock  of  that  sort  of  wisdom  which  Pittsey 
wished  him  to  acquire.  It  was  not  long,  however,  be 
fore  the  fact  that  Don  was  a  Canadian  became  known 
to  his  theatrical  associates,  and  his  simplicity  was  ex 
cused  by  them  as  the  natural  ignorance  of  a  foreigner 
who  in  his  own  country  would  doubtless  be  "wise" 
to  the  strangest  of  native  ways.  Pittsey  lost  his 
patience  for  a  moment  when  he  found. that  he  must 
teach  his  assistant  even  the  art  of  "making  change," 
for  Don  tried  to  subtract  the  price  of  a  ticket  from  a 
five-dollar  bill,  as  if  he  were  doing  "mental  arithme 
tic,"  instead  of  using  his  coins  as  counters  after  the 
manner  of  the  experienced  clerk.  But  he  was  so  eager 
to  learn,  so  grateful  for  his  tuition,  and  so  full  of  ad 
miration  for  his  teacher  that  Pittsey  could  not  remain 
angry  with  him.  And  his  evident  honesty,  his  devotion 


THE  VISIONARY  371 

to  his  duties— which  he  accepted  as  a  most  sobering 
responsibility— and  his  engaging  gentleness  with  the 
public,  were  qualifications  for  office  that  easily  out 
weighed  his  defects. 

He  was  to  find  it  his  good  fortune  that  he  was  re 
quired  to  be  merely  an  automaton  in  his  work.  Shut 
in  behind  the  brass  rods  of  his  window  and  the  wire 
screen  of  his  locked  door,  he  was  to  see  the  public  go 
past  in  a  procession  of  speaking  heads  and  open  hands 
that  asked  and  were  answered,  gave,  received  and  dis 
appeared.  There  was  to  be  something  pleasant  to  him 
in  the  fact  that  although  he  could  hear  the  slightest 
whisper  of  the  purchaser  at  the  open  window,  he  had  to 
raise  his  own  voice  to  make  himself  heard  in  reply ;  that 
he  could  speak  in  an  amused  aside  to  Pittsey  without  be 
ing  overheard  by  the  expectant  head  at  the  wicket;  and 
that  the  office,  glowing  with  light  and  warmth,  was  as 
comfortable  as  home  to  him,  while  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  seemed  to  be  coming,  like  hungry  street-children 
to  a  bake-shop  window,  to  stare  in  at  him  from  the  cold 
darkness,  red-nosed  and  with  numb  hands. 

But  these  impressions  were  still  in  the  future;  for 
the  present  he  was  busy  arranging  the  office  to  Pitt 
sey 's  taste,  with  some  of  the  glad  anticipations  of  a 
young  housewife  moving  into  a  new  home.  Miss  Mor 
ris  looked  in  on  them  for  a  moment,  on  her  way  from 
rehearsals,  but  she  understood  from  Pittsey 's  manner 
that  the  ticket  office  was  not  to  be  used  for  social  calls, 
and  she  withdrew  as  soon  as  possible.  ''Let  me  come 
and  see  you,"  Don  proposed,  as  she  went. 

"But  I   'm  rehearsing  morning,  noon  and  night," 


372  DON-A-DREAMS 

she  said.  "We  shall  have  to  wait  till  Sunday— unless 
I  can  meet  you,  some  day,  at  lunch  time.  I  '11  try. ' ' 

She  did  not  ask  him  about  Margaret,  nor  did  she  men 
tion  Polk ;  and  Don,  with  his  faculty  for  self-deception, 
did  not  try  to  look  below  the  smiling  surface  of  her 
friendliness. 

When  the  office  had  been  closed  for  the  night,  he  went 
with  Pittsey  to  have  dinner  at  the  latter 's  hotel;  but 
he  went  wondering  how  Margaret  had  spent  the  day 
and  wishing  that  he  could  think  of  an  excuse  for  escap 
ing  to  her.  He  could  not,  in  friendship,  refuse  to  dine 
with  Walter,  but  he  was  glad  when  Bert  Pittsey  joined 
them  at  table — his  pocket  full  of  newspapers  and  his 
head  full  of  chatter — for  his  arrival  relieved  Don  of 
the  burden  of  conversation,  and  left  him  to  his 
thoughts ;  and  while  he  ate  distractedly  he  went  over  in 
memory  all  the  impressions  of  his  busy  day,  and  re 
called  Margaret,  across  the  crowded  interval  of  separ 
ation,  as  if  he  had  not  seen  her  for  a  month. 

Bert,  in  his  new  position  as  "cub  reporter,"  was 
doing  what  he  called  "leg  work,"  and  he  had  adven 
tures  to  relate.  He  gave  his  account  of  them  with  his 
usual  air  of  young  deviltry.  "Had  an  assignment  this 
afternoon  to  root  out  a  story  of  an  old  curb-market 
stock-sharp  who  was  marrying  a  woman  that  owned  a 
Sixth  Avenue  restaurant.  They  've  been  boarding  in 
the  same  house.  I  could  n't  see  either  of  them,  so  I 
had  to  imagine  them.  I  imagined  him  a  Wall  street 
millionaire  who  had  fallen  in  love  with  the  beautiful 
waitress  who  used  to  feed  him  his  lunch.  It  made  a 
great  story!  The  only  trouble  with  reporting  is  that 


THE  VISIONARY  373 

you  're  hampered  by  the  facts  in  the  case.  I  could  n't 
say  that  he  'd  fallen  in  love  with  her  over  a  plate  of 
corn-beef  hash.  I  had  to  make  it  'It  is  said'  this  and 
'It  is  reported'  that.  That  's  the  sort  of  thing  that 
drives  so  many  discouraged  newspaper  men  into  maga 
zine  work." 

Walter  heard  him  with  the  air  of  an  elder  brother 
listening  to  a  precocious  younger  one.  Don  did  not 
hear  him  at  all— until  Conroy's  name,  mentioned  in  the 
conversation,  caught  his  ear.  Then  he  looked  up  to 
catch  Bert  saying,  in  a  low  aside  to  Walter:  "There  's 
a  lady  in  the  case. ' '  And  suddenly  he  remembered  the 
hat  and  veil  which  he  had  seen  on  the  dining-room 
table. 

''What  's  the  matter?"  he  asked. 

But  Bert  Pittsey  refused  to  tell.  "Excuse  me,"  he 
said.  "I  don't  'muddle'  in  any  private  affairs  unless 
for  purposes  of  publication." 

"Who  is  she?" 

He  bowed,  like  a  politician  declining  to  be  inter 
viewed.  "I  have  nothing  whatever  to  say  on  that  sub 
ject  at  present." 

"She  was  there— was  n't  she?— when  I  called  the 
other  day?" 

"Very  sorry,  boys,  very  sorry.  But  you  '11  have  to 
excuse  me  to-day.  Fine  weather  we  're  having,  is  it 
not?" 

Walter  laughed.  "You  had  better  keep  out  of  it," 
he  advised  Dion.  "You  '11  only  get  yourself  into  more 
trouble." 

"Me  too,"    Bert  said.    "I  intend  to  dissolve  partner- 


374  DON-A-DREAMS 

ship  with  your  gentle  cousin  as  soon  as  possible,  and  I 
desire  that  we  shall  part  without  any  formal  blows." 
That  was  all  that  Don  could  learn  of  the  matter.  He 
thought  it  over.  With  the  arrival  of  coffee  and  cigars, 
he  concluded  to  let  the  affair  rest  until  Pittsey's  dis 
solution  of  partnership  should  make  it  possible  to  dis 
cover  the  whole  truth.  When  Walter  proposed  that 
they  finish  the  night  at  a  theater,  Don  said:  "I  ought 
to  go—  I  have  some  letters  I  should  write."  But  AVal- 
ter  would  not  hear  of  such  a  way  of  wasting  an  evening. 
"You  have  n't  many  more  nights  free,"  he  said.  And 
Don  went  with  them  irresolutely. 

IT  was  nearly  midnight  when  he  returned  to  his  lodg 
ings,  but  as  he  came  cautiously  upstairs  he  saw  a 
thread  of  light  under  Margaret's  door.  He  tapped  on 
a  panel  and  called,  under  his  voice:  "How  have  you 
been?" 

The  door  burst  open  as  if  it  had  been  set  on  a  spring. 
Margaret  confronted  him.  "Someone —  She  's  coming! 
She  knows  I  was  on  the  stage.  Someone  has  told  her!" 

Confused  by  the  suddenness  of  the  light  in  his 
eyes  and  by  the  anxious  appeal  for  aid  that  sounded  in 
the  hoarse  repression  of  her  voice,  he  stammered: 
"Wh-what?  Who?" 

"Mother!  Someone!  She  does  n't  say  who.  She  's 
coming— on  her  way— now.  She  won't  wait  for  me 
to  go.  She  's  coming  for  me.  What  shall  I  do?" 

She  waited  for  him  to  answer.  He  said,  at  last, 
inadequately:  "Well,  tell  her  you  won't  go." 

"But  she  '11  make  me!" 

"How  can  she?" 


THE  VISIONARY  375 

"She  's— she  's  my  mother!    I  can't—" 

"Well,"  he  said  weakly,  "suppose  she  is.  She  can't 
take  you  if  you  don't  want  to  go." 

She  stepped  into  the  hall  and  drew  the  door  to,  be 
hind  her.  ' '  But  what  can  I  say  ?  What  can  I  tell  her  ? 
I— I  've  failed  to  get  anything.  I  've  been  going  all 
day— yesterday  too— and  there  is  n't  anything— noth 
ing!  They  all  tell  me  I  'm  not  far  enough  advanced, 
that  I  should  go  home  and  study,  and  come  down  again 
in  a  year  or  two.  I  have  nothing  to  tell  her— not  even 
a  prospect  of  anything.  I  can't— I  have  to—  I  won't 
have  even  a  home.  I  have  n  't  any  money— ' ' 

He  put  in  eagerly :  ' '  That  's  all  right.  I  have  plenty 
now— enough  for  both  of  us." 

"But  if  I  don't —  I  may  never.  It  may  be  years. 
I-" 

"I  don't  care— as  long  as  you  stay." 

"But  I  can't!  I  can't  do  that.  Don't  you  under 
stand?" 

The  hall  was  dark;  he  could  not  see  her  face.  But 
there  was  an  almost  tearful  exasperation  in  her  voice, 
and  he  hurried  to  plead  against  that  tone:  "Don't 
leave  me  now,  when  everything  's  beginning  to  go  right, 
when  I  'm  just  beginning  to  be  able  to  help  you.  I 
can't  let  you  go.  What  right  has  s/ie?  What  has  she 
to  offer—" 

"But  you—  She  's  my  mother.  That  's  her  right. 
I  can't  tell  her—  I  have  n't  anything  to  tell  her.  It  's 
you—  it  's  we— that  have  no  right." 

"Well,  what  can  I  do?  What  do  you  want  me  to 
do?  Shall /see  her?" 

"What  good  would  that  do?" 


376  DON-A-DREAMS 

There  was  a  despair  of  him  in  her  voice.  He  reached 
her  hand  in  the  darkness,  as  if  to  hold  her  to  the  friendly 
sympathy  of  the  past  few  days.  "Don't—  Don't— 

"But  Don,"  she  whispered,  coming  as  if  uncon 
sciously  to  the  arm  that  supported  her,  "what  are  we  to 
do?  I  know —  I  don't  want  to  go.  I  don't  want  to 
leave  you."  Her  hand  was  on  his  shoulder;  he  held 
her  like  a  lover.  "  We  must  be  practical.  We  can't— " 

"I  will,"  he  choked.  "I  '11  think  of  something. 
Don't  let  her  take  you  away.  I  could  n't  live  here  now, 
without  you.  I—" 

There  was  the  rustle  of  a  stealthy  movement  on  the 
landing  below  them.  She  tried  to  draw  back.  He  held 
her  to  a  hurried  "Good-night"  and  the  kiss  that  ac 
companied  it.  He  felt  her  relax  in  his  arms.  "Good 
night,"  she  whispered,  warm  against  his  cheek— and 
immediately  she  was  gone. 

He  fumbled  his  way  upstairs  to  his  room,  in  the  blind 
darkness,  mechanically,  every  conscious  faculty  of  his 
mind  still  entangled,  bewildered,  enraptured  by  the 
transport  and  sudden  ecstacy  of  that  caress. 


VIII 

THE  thought  with  which  he  awoke  in  the  morning  was 
the  resolve  to  which  he  had  held  himself  as  he  fell 
asleep  overnight:  that  he  must  do  something  decisive 
at  once.  He  had  no  time  to  lose;  her  mother  might 
arrive  at  any  moment;  they  must  be  prepared  with  a 
plan  of  action  to  meet  her. 


THE  VISIONARY  377 

There  was  one  plan  that  was  the  obvious  solution 
of  their  difficulty ;  but  he  found  something  repellent  in 
the  thought  that  he  should  take  advantage  of  Mar 
garet's  situation  to  force  her  where  her  heart,  perhaps, 
did  not  yet  make  her  willing  to  go.  He  had  looked 
forward  to  their  marriage  as  a  sort  of  crowning  event 
for  his  success  in  life,  when  he  would  be  able  to  offer 
her  the  happiness  of  his  prosperity  and  give  her  a  home 
worthy  of  her  and  of  his  love.  He  could  not  ask  her 
to  share  a  garret  with  him.  He  had  even  a  ridiculous 
shame  of  letting  her  see  the  poverty  of  his  wardrobe, 
of  introducing  her  to  the  makeshifts  of  his  dressing 
room.  His  ideal  of  her  demanded  that  she  should  be 
won  by  nobility  and  devotion,  after  the  long  persuasion 
of  a  courtship— not  hurried  into  marriage  like  a  girl 
of  the  tenements,  against  her  will,  by  the  pleading  of  a 
lover  who  would  use  her  necessity  to  force  her. 

But  in  the  meantime  he  might  lose  her.  He  must 
find  a  way  to  temporize.  He  must  find  it  at  once.  And 
although  it  was  not  yet  seven  o  'clock  by  his  watch,  he 
washed  and  dressed  as  if  he  had  not  a  second  to  spare. 
The  first  thing  to  do  was  to  consult  with  her.  He  knew 
that  she  would  be  awake.  He  tip-toed  downstairs  and 
tapped  on  her  door.  "Yes?"  she  answered. 

"Come  out,"  he  said.  "I  '11  wait  at  the  front  door 
for  you." 

He  heard  her  patter,  bare-footed,  across  the  floor. 
He  went  below  and  stood  outside  on  the  old  "stoop," 
looking  down  on  the  hurry  of  clerks  and  shop-girls  on 
their  way  to  the  elevated  trains  that  would  return  them 
to  drudgery.  The  sky  was  a  sombre  wash  of  smudged 
grey,  heavy,  unrefreshed,  as  if  the  day  had  been  wak- 


378  DON-A-DEEAMS 

ened  too  soon  and  was  still  sulky  for  lack  of  sleep.  The 
air  was  thick  with  the  chill  and  odor  of  night-damps. 
He  buttoned  his  overcoat  resolutely  and  put  on  his 
gloves.  ' '  Now, ' '  he  said  to  himself,  ' '  let  us  see.  What 
shall  we  do?" 

The  question  was  still  unanswered— though  he  was 
pacing  up  and  down  the  pavement  with  it,  vainly  try 
ing  to  think— when  he  saw  her  descending  the  steps  to 
the  sidewalk.  He  hastened  to  meet  her.  "Have  you 
thought  of  anything?" 

She  blushed  faintly.  "No." 

"We  must,"  he  said.  "Your  mother  may  arrive  any 
moment  now.  Does  she  know  your  address  ? ' ' 

"Yes." 

"She  '11  come  direct  to  the  house,  then?" 

"I  suppose  so." 

"Let  us  get  away  from  here." 

He  turned  his  back  on  the  bustle  of  Sixth  Avenue 
and  led  her  toward  the  quieter  streets  of  old  Green 
wich.  She  went  in  a  silence  which  left  the  affair  wholly 
in  his  hands ;  and  he  frowned  over  it  diligently. 

He  began:  "It  won't  cost  me  ten  dollars  a  week  to 
live  now,  and  I  have  twenty-five.  Why  can't  you  take 
the  rest— the  fifteen— for  as  long  as  you  '11  need  it, 
and  just  tell  your  mother  that  you  have  money  to  keep 
you  here  and  you  intend  to  stay?" 

"Because  I—"  He  did  not  understand  her  confu 
sion.  "Because  I  can't." 

"Why  can't  you?" 

"How  can  I?  I  have  no—  There  's  no  reason  why 
you—" 

"Yes  there  is.     There  's  every  reason."  She  shook 


THE  VISIONARY  379 

her  head.  "Yes  there  is,"  he  insisted.  "I  've  been 
waiting—  I  Ve  been  planning  here,  working  and  every 
thing—because  I  knew  you  'd  come  to  New  York.  And 
now,  ever  since  you  've  been  here,  I  've  been — I  've 
been  so —  Have  n't  you  been  happy?  Do  you  want  to 
go?" 

"No,"  she  said  gently.  "I  don't,  Don.  But  it— 
perhaps  it  would  be  wiser  for  me  to  go  home  for  a  while 
and  then  come  back  again."  She  added  hastily,  seeing 
the  tragic  change  in  his  face :  "I  '11  come  back.  Then 
when  you  rre — when  you  're  more  sure  of  everything — 
This  is  the  first  time  you  've  had  an  opportunity  to  do 
your  work,  without  being  worried  and  upset.  I  don't 
know  that  I  shall  ever  find  anything.  Not  for  years. 
I  need  to  study.  I  could  do  that  at  home — study— 
while  I  'm  teaching.  We  could  write  to  each  other. 
We  could  .  .  .  wait." 

' '  Wait ! ' '  His  voice  was  almost  a  groan.  ' '  Have  n  't 
I  waited?  Have  n't  I  been  waiting  all  my  life?"  She 
took  his  arm  to  check  him.  He  went  on  passionately: 
' '  I  can 't  wait.  I  can 't  live  here  alone.  I  can 't  let  you 
go  again.  I  can 't. ' ' 

"Ssh!"  She  looked  askance  at  the  windows  they 
were  passing.  "If  we—  If  I  did  n't  go,  and  then  any 
thing  happened,  I  'd  be—" 

"What  do  I  care  what  happens  as  long  as  you  don't 
go !  You  could  n 't  be  any  worse  off  than  you  'd  be  at 
home.  Besides,  nothing  can  happen.  I  '11  see  to  that. 
Stay  with  me.  Don't  leave  me.  I—  " 

"Oh  Don!"  She  clung  to  his  arm.  "We  must  be 
practical." 

"Practical!    What  do  I  care  whether  we  're  practi- 


380  DON-A-DREAMS 

cal  or  not  as  long  as  we  're  happy.  I  won't  let  you  go ! 
I  won't  give  you  up !  If  you  leave  me  again,  I  '11— I  '11 
go  after  you. ' ' 

A  man,  approaching,  stared  as  he  came,  and  then, 
when  he  was  near  enough  to  see  their  expressions,  he 
looked  away  guiltily,  as  if  he  had  spied  on  a  family 
quarrel.  When  he  had  passed,  Margaret  said,  broken 
ly :  "It  's  so  unreasonable !  Blaming  me !  It  's  only 
for  your  sake—" 

"Then  stay  for  my  sake,"  he  pleaded.  "I  'm  only 
here— I  'm  only  working  for  you.  The  money  's  for 
you.  Everything  I  do  is  for  you."  She  fumbled  at 
the  handkerchief  in  the  bosom  of  her  jacket.  "We  've 
been  so  happy.  And  now,  with  my  work  come  out  right 
—and  all— to  go  away  and  leave  it— You  won 't !  Say 
you  won't." 

She  wiped  her  eyes  in  a  frantic  shame  of  such 
public  emotion.  "But  what  will  we  dot." 

"We  '11  do  what  we  have  been  doing.  Was  n't  that 
all  right?  I  have  my  work  now,  and  what  do  we  care 
how  long  it  takes  to  find  yours?  We  '11  find  it  some 
day,  just  as  I  've  found  mine,  and  we  '11  be  together, 
and  happy.  You  were  happy,  were  n't  you?" 

"Yes.    Yes." 

' '  Well  then,  what  does  anything  else  matter  ?  That  's 
all  I  ask,  to  have  you  with  me,  so  that  I  can  be  happy 
and  try  to  make  you  happy.  Your  mother  can't  do  it 
— any  more  than  my  father  can  make  me  happy.  She 
has  n't  anything  to  offer  you  except  what  will  make  us 
both  miserable.  She  has  n't  even  money.  You  '11 
have  to  work  at  what  you  don't  like.  And  here  you 
can  wait  until  you  find  what  you  do  like." 


THE  VISIONARY  381 

He  did  not  voice  the  thought  that  was  behind  this 
temporizing — the  thought  that  in  the  days  to  come  he 
would  win  her  to  the  act  that  would  relieve  her  of  all 
necessity  of  finding  work  for  herself.  But  she  knew 
that  the  thought  was  there,  and  she  accepted  it  unsaid. 

They  had  walked  into  a  street  that  ended  in  a  cul-de- 
sac,  and  they  had  to  stop  and  retrace  their  steps;  but 
his  arguments,  his  pleadings,  his  promises  went  on 
without  interruption,  in  a  current  against  which  she  no 
longer  tried  to  struggle.  They  lost  themselves  in  a 
maze  of  those  old  Greenwich  by-paths  that  wandered 
in  aimless  turns  and  circlings  between  rows  of  quaint 
red-brick  houses  with  colonial  doors  and  brass  knockers. 
They  came  unexpectedly  on  a  busy  thoroughfare,  noisy 
with  street-car  traffic,  and  he  did  not  recognize  it ;  but 
by  this  time  she  had  surrendered  her  last  objection, 
and  they  made  a  truce  of  their  troubles  in  their  at 
tempts  to  discover  where  they  were.  A  policeman 
directed  them  to  a  street  that  would  return  them  to 
Sixth  Avenue.  They  went  back  toward  their  little 
restaurant,  for  breakfast,  in  the  silence  of  hunger  and 
spent  emotions. 

He  regained  his  usual  optimism  at  the  table,  but  he 
found  that  he  could  not  raise  her  from  her  despondent 
apprehensions,  and  he  had  to  content  himself  with  the 
thought  that  after  her  mother  had  come  and  gone  she 
would  return  to  happiness.  He  parted  from  her  in  the 
hallway  outside  her  door,  exacting  her  meek  promise 
that  she  would  allow  nothing  to  force  her  to  leave  him. 
He  held  her  hand,  lingering,  on  a  desire  to  make  a  fonder 
leave-taking;  but  she  seemed  withdrawn  from  him  by 
her  anxiety,  and  he  was  afraid  to  intrude  his  love  on 


382  DON-A-DREAMS 

her.     "Good-bye,"  he  said.     "I  shall  not  be  able  to 
have  luncheon  with  you,  but  I  '11  be  here  at  six  o  'clock. ' ' 
She  replied,  dispiritedly:  "Good-bye." 

THE  million  interests  of  his  morning's  work  rushed  in 
over  the  thought  of  her  in  a  confusion  of  incessant 
demands  on  his  attention ;  for  Pittsey,  in  order  to  break 
in  his  assistant  to  his  duties,  stood  back  from  the  wicket 
and  made  Don  "handle  the  sale,"  interfering  only  to 
prevent  an  error  or  straighten  out  a  snarl.  "Sink  or 
swim,"  he  said,  when  Don  faltered  and  wiped  his  fore 
head.  "It  's  the  only  way  you  '11  ever  learn."  Long 
before  noon  Don 's  head  was  aching  and  his  wrists  were 
weak,  but  his  hands  were  beginning  to  move  deftly,  his 
voice  came  calm,  and  he  had  moments  when  he  gained 
that  mental  detachment  of  the  expert  ticket  seller  who 
can  do  two  things  at  once  and  watch  himself  doing  them 
as  if  the  thought  and  the  action  were  the  functions  of 
two  separate  minds.  "Now,"  Pittsey  said,  "you  had 
better  get  your  lunch  and  have  a  smoke.  Don't  come 
back  here  for  an  hour." 

Don  dropped  his  duties  like  a  weight,  with  the  feeling 
that  he  could  not  have  supported  the  strain  for  another 
five  minutes.  Miss  Morris  was  waiting  for  him  in  the 
foyer.  ' '  Goodness ! ' '  He  took  his  breath,  smiling  and 
shaking  his  head  at  her.  "  I  'm  almost  done  out. ' ' 

"Come  along,"  she  laughed.  "What  you  need  is  a 
beefsteak  and  a  glass  of  ale." 

They  went  to  a  chop-house  where  he  took  the  beef 
steak  but,  to  her  amusement,  declined  the  ale.  She 
watched  his  plate  like  a  grandmother,  making  him  eat, 


\ 


THE  VISIONAEY  383 

but  refusing  to  let  him  talk ;  and  he  was  so  grateful  to 
her  for  her  thoughtfulness  that  he  did  not  ask  himself 
whether  it  had  not  been  she  who  had  found  a  way  to 
let  Mrs.  Richardson  know  that  Margaret  was  on  the 
stage.  She  spoke  of  indifferent  matters :  of  her  change 
of  boarding-house,  of  Mr.  Folk's  new  play,  of  the  hope 
that  if  Folk's  theater  were  a  success  she  might  not 
have  "to  leave  Broadway"  all  winter,  of  Miss  Arden's 
"hit"  in  a  comic  opera,  of  the  affairs  of  the  "profes 
sion"  at  large.  He  listened,  too  tired  to  do  more  than 
smile.  He  returned  with  her  to  the  theater,  rested  and 
refreshed. 

The  afternoon  passed  as  quickly  as  the  morning  had, 
but  with  less  strain;  for  the  first  rush  for  tickets  was 
over,  and  he  worked  with  greater  ease.  When  the  box 
office  closed,  he  excused  himself  to  Walter,  on  the  plea 
of  an  "engagement,"  and  cut  through  the  crowds  to  his 
car  like  the  most  breathless  of  those  New  Yorkers  whose 
haste  he  had  once  envied  as  he  sat  idle  in  Union  Square. 

He  ran  upstairs  to  her  room  and  rapped  joyfully. 
Mrs.  McGahn  opened  the  door  to  him.  He  stared. 
"Where  is  she?" 

' '  She  's  here.  But  it  's  no  thanks  to  you  I  Come  in 
here." 

"What  's  the  matter?"  He  came  in  wonderingly, 
and  stopped,  frightened,  at  the  sight  of  Margaret  lying 
on  a  sofa.  ' '  Is  she  sick  ? ' ' 

' '  Sick !  If  she  ain  't,  it  's  a  wonder !  I  'd  be  sick  me- 
self!" 

"Mother  's  been  here,"  Margaret  said  faintly,  her 
back  to  him. 


384  DON-A-DREAMS 

"An'  you  're  the  sweet  one!"  Mrs.  McGahn  broke 
in.  ' '  To  go  off  an '  leave  her  to  fight  yer  battles  f  er  yuh. 
What  're  yuh  thinkin'  of,  to  do  it,  man?" 

He  did  not  reply  to  her.  He  had  scarcely  heard  her. 
He  came  to  the  foot  of  the  sofa  as  awkwardly  as  a  boy 
in  a  sick  room.  "What  's  the  matter?" 

She  rolled  her  head  on  the  cushion.  "I  '11  have  to 
go  home." 

He  dropped  his  hat.  "Why?" 

"Why?"  Mrs.  McGahn  echoed.  "Why!  Because 
she  's  the  girl's  mother,  ain't  she?"  She  stopped  at 
the  ghastliness  of  his  face.  "Well,  dang  yuh,"  she 
cried  in  a  humorous  Irish  exasperation,  "yuh  're  the 
biggest  fool  alive.  If  yuh  want  the  girl,  why  don't  yuh 
marry  her  ?  Shilly-shallyin ',  an '  kissin '  in  the  halls  at 
night,  an'  tormentin'  her  with  yer  goin's  on!  Why 
don't  yuh  marry  her  an'  tell  her  mother  to  go  off  an' 
mind  her  bus 'ness?  Here!"  She  closed  the  door  and 
came  back  to  front  him  like  a  magistrate.  "What  're 
yuh  up  to,  young  man?  Will  yuh  marry  her,  er  will 
yuh  not?  Fer,  by  the  jukes,  now,  if  yuh  won't,  yuh  '11 
go  out  o'  here  this  blessed  minut'  an'  the  girl  '11  go 
home  in  the  mornin '  to  where  she  belongs !  Now !  Out 
with  it!" 

Margaret  struggled  to  get  up,  rising  on  her  elbow. 
"Mrs.  McGahn!"  she  cried  piteously. 

"Be  still,  you."  She  rounded  on  Don  again.  "It  's 
take  it  er  leave  it!  She  can't  stay  here— an'  I  won't 
have  her  here.  She  's  her  mother's  daughter  until 
she  's  a  wedded  woman  an'  out  o'  danger.  An'  home 
she  '11  go!" 


THE  VISIONARY  385 

Don  did  not  so  much  as  look  at  her.  He  was  appeal 
ing  to  the  girl  with  his  eyes.  "Don't  go."  he  said 
hoarsely.  ' '  If  you— if  you  '11  do  it.  If  you  care  enough 
for  me  to  let  me—" 

Mrs.  McGahn,  with  a  sudden  understanding  of  what 
he  was  trying  to  say,  took  him  by  the  arm  and  drew 
him  to  Margaret 's  side.  ' '  Here ! ' '  she  said,  and  turning 
from  them,  she  marched  out  of  the  room. 


IX 


WHEN  she  looked  in  again,  Dion  was  sitting  on  the  edge 
of  the  sofa,  in  the  dusk;  the  girl  was  in  his  arms;  she 
was  crying  on  his  shoulder.  Mrs.  McGahn  smiled. 
"Well?" 

Don  looked  around  with  a  drawn  face.  ' '  Is  she  back, 
Mrs.  Richardson?" 

' '  No,  she  ain  't, ' '  she  blustered,  exaggeratingly.  ' '  An ' 
she  won't  be,  till  mornin'.  I  put  her  out  o'  the  house, 
hot-foot.  Persecutin'  the  child!" 

"I  told  her  I  would  n't  go  until  the  morning,  until 
I  had  seen  you, ' '  Margaret  sobbed. 

"That  will  give  us  plenty  of  time."  He  asked  Mrs. 
McGahn  shakily:  "Do  you  know  anyone— around  here 
—who  '11  do  to—" 

" Are  yuhCath 'lies?" 

"No.  We  're-" 

"Neither  am  I.    If  yuh  'd  been  Cath'lics,  I  '11  be 

26 


386  DON-A-DREAMS 

danged  if  I  know  how  they  marry.  I  'm  Orange  meself, 
an'  so  's  Dan.  Who  's  yer  min'ster?" 

' '  I  don 't  know.  I  have  n  't  any. ' '  He  shook  his  head, 
in  a  helpless  perplexity. 

She  snorted.  "Yuh  young  heathen!  Yuh  deserve 
no  better  than  bein'  married  be  an  alderman.  That  '11 
teach  yuh  to  go  to  church.  It  's  well  f er  yuh  that  I  'm 
a  married  woman — with  daughters  like  me."  She 
waved  him  to  the  door.  "Go  get  a  cab — an'  a  weddin' 
ring!"  She  wailed:  "An'  my  dinner  in  the  oven!" 
She  stopped  him :  "Wait !  Do  yuh  know  the  size  ?  No  ! 
There  's  a  man  now !  As  helpless  as  the  babe  at  a 
christ 'nin'!  Have  y'  even  a  bit  o'  string?  No,  not  a 
bit ! ' '  She  caught  up  Margaret 's  glove  from  the 
dresser.  "Take  that — to  a  jeweler's.  Go  on!  Be  off 
with  yuh!  Take  yer  hat,  man!"  She  drove  him  out, 
and  he  went  clutching  the  glove  in  one  hand,  his  hat  in 
the  other.  She  called  down  the  stairs  after  him :  "  It  's 
a  four  wheeler  yuh  '11  want,  mind  yuh ! ' '  She  shrieked, 
at  the  next  landing :  ' '  An '  a  witness !  I  'm  one ! 
Yuh  '11  want  two!" 

IF  Don  had  any  clear  idea  of  what  he  was  doing  at  the 
time,  certainly  he  had  no  clear  recollection,  afterwards, 
of  how  he  had  done  it.  He  found  what  he  supposed  was 
a  jeweler's  shop— though  subsequently,  in  pointing  it 
out  to  Margaret,  he  saw  that  it  was  a  pawnbroker's. 
He  bought  a  ring— that  must  have  been  an  "unre 
deemed  pledge"— without  knowing  what  he  paid  for  it. 
The  man  behind  the  glass  show-case  called  him  back  to 
give  him  the  glove,  which  he  had  forgotten;  and  he 


THE  VISIONARY  387 

drifted  down  the  street,  looking  for  a  livery  stable, 
holding  the  ring  in  his  bare  hand  like  a  child  with  a 
penny,  struggling  absent-mindedly  to  put  on  the  glove 
—which  was  Margaret's— and  bewildered  to  find  that 
his  hand  had  grown  too  large  for  it.  The  hostler  of  a 
boarding-stable  directed  him  to  a  livery  near  by,  and  he 
succeeded  in  hiring  a  cab,  though  he  had  the  feeling 
that  he  was  speaking  a  foreign  language  and  had  diffi 
culty  in  finding  his  words.  The  livery  man  understood 
the  situation  when  Don,  trying  to  pay  in  advance,  found 
that  the  money  he  had  in  his  hand  was  a  wedding  ring. 
"That  's  all  right,"  the  man  grinned.  "I  been  there. 
Put  that  in  yer  vest  pocket  an'  ferget  where  it  is. "  And 
he  and  the  driver,  having  sympathetically  helped  Don 
to  remember  the  address  of  Walter  Pittsey  's  hotel,  shut 
him  in  the  cab  and  started  the  horses. 

That  drive  was  to  remain  in  his  memory  as  a  smell 
of  mildewed  leather-cushions  and  a  sea-sickening  dark 
ness  of  rocking  pitches,  with  street  lights  swimming  by 
on  the  shores.  He  disembarked  at  a  blazing  hotel  front 
and  walked  wide  to  the  desk,  over  the  black  and  white 
marble  squares  of  a  tesselated  floor.  Walter  Pittsey 
was  nowhere  to  be  found.  The  clerk,  after  answering 
several  futile  questions,  edged  away  from  him  and  pre 
tended  to  be  busy  looking  up  nothing  in  the  telephone 
directory.  Don  wandered  back  to  his  cab,  remembered 
Bert  Pittsey,  and  gave  the  address  to  the  driver  on  the 
box.  He  stood  beside  the  front  wheels  until  the  man 
said:  "Yes  'ur.  Jus'  get  inside  now  an'  we  '11  start. 
See  yuh  shut  the  door. ' ' 

It  followed,  naturally,  that  Don  held  the  door  shut 


388  DON-A-DREAMS 

until  the  cab  had  stopped  at  Pittsey's  number.  Then, 
alighting  from  the  door  which  he  had  been  holding,  he 
found  himself  in  the  middle  of  the  street  and  had  diffi 
culty  in  distinguishing  the  house. 

Pittsey  said  afterwards :  ' '  He  came  in  on  me  without 
knocking,  and  he  looked  as  if  he  had  just  been  wakened 
up  and  did  n't  quite. know  where  he  was."  It  struck 
Don  at  the  time  that  Pittsey  behaved  as  if  he  had  been 
invited  out  to  see  a  three-alarm  fire ;  for,  after  his  first 
staring  amazement — half -risen  from  the  dining  table, 
with  a  knife  in  his  hand — he  shouted  and  snatched  at 
his  overcoat  and  came  laughing. 

"Where  's  he?  Conroy?"  Don  asked,  in  the  carriage. 

"He  's  running  a  quiet  wedding  of  his  own,"  Bert 
said;  and  because  Don  could  not  make  sense  of  the  re 
ply,  he  did  not  ask  any  more  questions. 

He  was  worried  by  a  sinking  sensation  in  his  stomach 
which  had  made  it  difficult  for  him  to  judge  the  length 
and  reach  of  his  legs,  particularly  in  going  up  or  coming 
downstairs.  For  that  reason,  he  left  it  to  Pittsey  to 
tell  Mrs.  McGahn  that  the  cab  was  at  the  door;  and 
when  the  voluble  landlady  appeared,  behind  her  voice 
— like  an  actor  who  is  heard  shouting  in  the  wings  be 
fore  he  makes  his 'entrance  on  the  stage — Don  sank  back 
against  the  cushions,  under  cover  of  her  garrulity,  in  a 
personal  silence  that  was  aware  of  Margaret  at  his  side 
in  every  tingling  nerve. 

He  lost  her  again  when  he  came  on  the  confusing 
necessity  of  remembering  his  name,  his  age,  his  color 
and  the  number  of  times  that  he  had  been  married  be 
fore—filling  out  the  document  required  by  law.  He 


THE  VISIONARY  389 

signed  it  laboriously  and  gave  up  the  pen  to  Pittsey, 
after  trying  to  put  it  in  his  pencil  pocket.  He  moved 
like  a  dummy  to  his  place  before  a  table  in  the  minis 
ter's  parlor,  being  divided  against  himself  by  the  fact 
that  the  affair  reminded  him  of  his  first  rehearsal  in 
"The  Rajah's  Ruby"— until  he  was  asked  to  repeat, 
after  the  clergyman,  the  words  of  the  service,  and  then 
he  stood,  with  Margaret,  as  if  in  the  infant  class  at 
Sabbath  school,  shakily  reciting  verses  which  he  did  not 
understand.  He  put  the  ring  on  her  finger  as  clumsily 
as  if  he  were  trying  to  thread  a  needle ;  and  when  Mrs. 
McGahn  whispered  loudly  "Salute  yer  bride!  Kiss 
yer  wife ! "  he  kissed  her  beside  the  nose,  stiff  with  an 
intensity  of  emotion,  the  tears  in  his  eyes. 

Pittsey  wrung  his  hand.  "Good  boy!"  he  said. 
"You  did  it  well."  And  Don  smiled  the  foolish  smile 
of  bridegrooms. 

"Now,"  Mrs.  McGahn  announced,  "yuh  '11  all  come 
back  an'  have  yer  weddin'  supper  with  me — if  that 
woman  has  n  't  burned  it  to  flitters. ' '  Pittsey  was  pay 
ing  the  minister.  Margaret  was  looking,  a  little  fright 
ened,  at  her  husband  as  if  she  did  not  quite  recognize 
him.  "Come  along  with  yuh!  All  of  yuh!  Will  yuh 
come,  Mr.  Cobbett  ? ' '  The  Reverend  J.  Sanderson  Cob- 
bett  excused  himself  in  a  low  voice  that  contrasted  with 
her  excited  pitch  of  hospitality.  She  was  not  discour 
aged.  " Come  along,  Mr.  Pitty.  I  can't  offer  yuh  wed 
din'  cake  an'  wine—"  Pittsey  saw  the  desire  of  escape 
in  Don 's  look  of  misery—' '  but  Dan  '11  make  y '  a  punch 
that  '11  keep  yuh  grinnin'  fer  a  whole  honeymoon—" 

"  I  'm  afraid  you  '11  have  to  make  it  a  wedding  break- 


390  DON-A-DREAMS 

fast,  Mrs.  McGowan,"  he  excused  them.  "I  ordered 
supper  for  them  at  their  hotel." 

' '  There ! ' '  she  said.  ' '  I  knowed  I  'd  be  disappointed 
some  way.  Never  mind !  I  've  had  a  weddin '  any 
way. "  She  cuddled  Margaret.  "Yuh  spoke  up  like 
a  trump,  girl.  Come  along.  Drive  me  home,  now. 
Sure  I  'm  an  ol'  fool."  She  had  suddenly  been  over 
taken  in  her  turn  by  the  usual  desire  to  weep.  "I  s'pose 
Dan  '11  be  growlin'  fer  his  grub  like  a  bear  with  a  sore 
ear.  Yuh  're  young  yet.  God  give  yuh  happiness. 
Yuh  '11  be  good  to  her,  Mr.  Gregg,  now.  She  's  give  yuh 
all  she  's  got," 

She  crammed  with  good  advice  the  few  minutes  of 
the  drive  back  to  her  home;  and  she  kissed  Margaret 
at  the  cab-door,  and  ran  upstairs  for  the  girl's  valise — 
which  she  had  packed  ready — and  kissed  her  again 
when  she  came  back  with  it.  When  she  saw  that  Don 
had  not  his  bag,  she  lost  her  tender  emotion  in  the 
scolding  haste  of  helping  him  to  get  it.  By  this  time 
her  husband  was  at  the  door  and  all  the  lodgers  were 
in  the  windows;  and  when  Pittsey  at  last  got  the  cab 
under  way,  she  threw  an  old  slipper  after  them,  and 
hit  one  of  the  gaping  street-children  on  the  head  with  it. 
They  escaped  while  she  was  trying  to  comfort  the  in 
jured  youngster. 

' '  A  worthy  woman, ' '  Pittsey  said.  ' '  Next  to  a  wake, 
they  do  enjoy  a  wedding.  Where  am  I  taking  you  now?" 

They  did  not  know.  Don  explained,  rather  uncer 
tainly,  that  he  had  not  made  any  arrangements  of  any 
sort.  "Mrs.  McGahn— " 

"Enough  said,"  Pittsey  interrupted.     "Let  me  dis- 


THE  VISIONARY  391 

pose  of  you.  Your  cousin  has  divorced  me — for  a  hand 
somer  girl — and  I  have  a  flat  on  my  hands.  I  'm  giving 
up  housekeeping,  and  I  '11  sell  the  outfit.  Or  if  you 
don't  want  to  buy,  I  '11  give  it  to  you.  Anyway,  take 
it  for  the  time  being,  until  you  find  a  better  place.  I  'm 
going  to  join  Walt.  You  get  your  suppers,  and  by  the 
time  you  arrive  at  my  former  rooms  you  '11  find  them 
ready  for  you  and  the  key  of  the  dining  room  under 
the  door  mat.  Turn  it  to  your  left  and  walk  in.  The 
rent  won't  be  due  for  a  week." 

Don  was  as  incapable  of  argument  as  he  was  of  sug 
gesting  any  better  plan;  and  Pittsey,  having  stopped 
the  cab  at  a  street  corner,  shook  hands  with  them  smil 
ingly,  gave  directions  to  the  cabman  and  watched  them 
drive  off. 

They  went  in  darkness,  in  silence,  side  by  side.  At 
the  turning  of  a  corner,  Don  said,  out  of  an  emotion 
that  had  evidently  been  throttling  him:  "We  're — 
we  're  married ! ' ' 

"Oh  Don,"  she  cried,  "we  should  n't  have!  We 
should  n't  have  done  it!" 

He  put  an  arm  about  her.     "Wait!"  he  exulted. 

"Just  wait  till  I  show  you.  Just  you— just  you  wait ! 
We  '11  be  the  happiest!" 


IT  is  the  triumph  of  the  imaginative  man  that  he  makes 
the  best  lover  in  the  world;  and  Don's  love  had  been, 
for  so  long,  the  faith  of  his  life  that  even  the  realities 


392  DON-A-DREAMS 

of  married  intercourse  did  not  more  than  ritualize  it 
into  a  religion.  If  Margaret  had  been  unable  to  appre 
ciate  it  in  its  silent  devotions,  she  thrilled  and  glowed 
to  it  now  that  it  had  become  voluble  and  formulary. 
And  like  so  many  women  who  marry  young,  her  maiden 
sentiment  was  a  pale  and  mild  affection  compared  with 
the  passionate  surrender  of  the  wife.  Even  the  dis 
comforts  of  their  honeymoon  days  in  Pittsey's  flat  were 
lost  in  the  sunrise  flush  of  happiness  that  made  all 
beautiful.  Even  her  mother's  anger  softened  into  a 
natural  misunderstanding  which  the  girl  sympathized 
with  and  forgave.  . 

As  for  Don,  he  had  arrived  at  the  promised  land. 
His  great  dream  had  come  true.  He  felt  that  no  hope 
could  be  too  extravagant  since  this  impossibility  had 
come  to  pass.  He  hurried  home  at  night,  from  the  long 
day's  separation,  eager  to  bill  and  coo,  to  plan  new  joys 
for  their  future  and  to  recall  the  vicissitudes  of  their 
past.  He  had  to  discover  when  it  was  that  she  had 
really,  first,  begun  to  love  him.  He  had  to  be  assured 
endlessly  that  she  was  happy.  He  had  to  sit  over  their 
late  supper,  basking  in  the  comforts  of  domesticity,  con 
trasting  these  full  days  of  their  companionship  with 
the  hungry  ones  he  had  come  through.  If  she 
smiled  at  the  wildness  of  his  castle-building,  he  replied : 
"Well,  would  you  have  believed,  a  month  ago,  that 
we  'd  be  here  1  You  leave  this  to  me.  I  '11  do  it.  First 
we  '11  move  into  a  comfortable  flat.  Then  I  '11  write 
the  bulliest  play  ever— and  get  Miss  Morris  the  lead  in 
it.  Then  I  'm  going  to  get  Conroy  on  his  feet.  Then, 
as  soon  as  the  theater  closes  for  the  summer,  we  're  go- 


THE  VISIONARY  393 

ing  on  our  honeymoon  to  Coulton— to  see  mother. 
Then—" 

Meanwhile,  Miss  Morris  had  not  returned  to  the 
theater,  and  when  he  attempted  to  see  her,  he  was  told 
that  she  was  ill.  When  he  learned  from  Walter  Pittsey 
that  she  had  left  Polk 's  company,  he  endeavored  to  find 
out  what  had  happened;  and  Pittsey  replied,  oracu 
larly:  "You  know  more  about  it  than  I  do."  Subse 
quently,  Don  heard  that  she  had  "gone  on  the  road." 
Finally,  he  read  in  a  dramatic  paper  that  she  was  lead 
ing  woman  in  a  San  Francisco  stock  company;  and  he 
wrote  to  her.  But  he  did  not  understand  her  part — 
much  less  her  purpose — in  bringing  about  the  events 
that  had  led  up  to  his  hasty  marriage ;  and  he  did  not 
understand  why  she  had  fallen  back  into  that  strange 
silence  of  life  from  which  she  had  so  suddenly  emerged 
upon  him. 

He  moved  to  a  little,  uptown,  top-floor  flat  which 
Margaret  and  he  furnished  "on  the  instalment  plan," 
dignifying  the  tiny  front  room  with  a  rented  piano  for 
her  and  a  library  writing-table  for  him.  She  was  to 
practise  her  music  while  he  wrote  on  his  plays.  They 
settled  down  to  that  dual  program  of  ambitious  work, 
happy  in  their  nest  under  the  eaves.  Walter  Pittsey 
became  a  frequent  visitor,  and  Margaret  encouraged 
him  to  come,  because  he  tried  to  aid  arid  advise  Don  in 
his  play-writing.  He  even  endeavored  to  interest  Polk 
in  one  of  Don's  manuscripts,  and  was  not  surprised 
to  find  that  Polk— though  he  pronounced  the  play  itself 
"awful  stuff,  awful"— was  puzzled  and  amused  by 
Don  as  if  by  a  new  specimen  of  young  human  nature  to 


394=  DON-A-DREAMS 

be  studied  and  perhaps  reproduced.  He  drew  Don  out, 
at  their  odd  meetings  in  the  box  office,  professed  to  see 
possibilities  in  Don's  "Winter"  as  a  sort  of  spectacular 
extravaganza,  asked  him  to  write  it  out,  and  quizzed 
him,  with  the  soberest  countenance,  about  his  views  of 
life.  Only  to  Pittsey,  Polk  confessed:  "I  don't  believe 
he  '11  write  a  play,  if  he  lives  to  be  a  thousand. ' ' 

"Why  not?" 

"I  '11  tell  you  why. ' '  He  gulped  his  glass  of  whiskey 
and  water,  at  the  bar.  "For  the  same  reason  that  no 
woman  has  ever  written  a  big  play.  Did  you  ever  think 
of  it?  Lots  of  women  have  written  first-class  novels. 
One  or  two  have  written  great  poetry.  Almost  none  have 
written  any  music  worth  considering.  And  fewer  still 
have  written  even  passable  plays.  And  I  '11  tell  you 
why !  Because  women  are  sensitive  and  emotional  and 
artistic,  but  they  're  not  strong  enough  to  subdue  emo 
tion  to  the  ends  of  art,  d'  you  see?  And  the  more  stiff 
the  laws  of  your  art,  the  more  impossible  it  is  for  them 
to  handle  it.  Music  's  bad  enough !  Pure  emotion  ex 
pressed  in  rules  of  harmony  that  are  like  mathematics ! 

But  a  play,  man!  Why  a  play  's  the  most  d d 

intricate  piece  of  mechanism  that  was  ever  put  together. 
And  to  make  it  live,  you  have  to  be  the  master  of  life 
as  well  as  the  slave  of  it."  He  laughed  abruptly. 
"That  's  the  truth  I  'm  telling  you.  I  just  read  it  in 
a  newspaper." 

"And  you  think  that  's  the  trouble  with  Gregg?" 

' '  That  's  the  trouble  with  Gregg.  He  's  as  sensitive  as 
a  woman,  but  he  lives  like  a  woman,  and  he  '11  never 
write  a  d d  thing !  He  's  too  deep  in  his  own  emo- 


THE  VISIONARY  395 

tions."  He  added:  "Lucky  beggar!  Life  's  worth 
while  when  you  can  live  it  as  much  as  he  does. ' ' 

"He  's  happy,  certainly." 

' '  Happy !  Of  course,  he  's  happy.  He  's  too  happy 
to  write.  And  when  he  's  miserable,  he  '11  be  too  miser 
able  to  write." 

"Well,"  Pittsey  reflected,  "I  suppose  it  '11  not  hurt 
him  to  try. ' ' 

' '  No.  And  he  '11  be  happier  trying  than  he  would  be 
if  he  had  in  it  him  to  succeed." 

He  was  certainly  happy,  trying— though  he  was  per 
haps  happier  talking  about  how  happy  both  Margaret 
and  he  were  to  be  when  he  should  succeed.  He  worked 
at  his  manuscript  of  "Winter"  undiscouraged  by  the 
sudden  abatement  of  Walter's  enthusiasm;  but  he  did 
nothing  to  force  himself  into  the  way  of  success.  He 
had  a  faith  in  his  future  that  made  him  almost  court  a 
present  obscurity ;  and  he  looked  out  on  the  world  from 
the  grating  of  his  ticket  window,  amused  to  see  that  the 
public  mistook  him  for  what  he  seemed  to  be.  His  let 
ters  to  his  mother  were  full  of  dark  hints  of  this  faith  in 
himself,  but  to  no  one  else  did  he  write  a  word  of  it.  He 
did  not  write  to  his  aunt  or  his  uncle  at  all ;  for  he  had 
learned  the  whole  truth  of  Conroy  's  ' '  lady  in  the  case, ' ' 
and  he  preferred  rather  to  be  silent  than  to  be  a  hypo 
crite. 

That  "lady"  was  the  young  woman  whom  Conroy 
had  found  to  do  the  housework  at  the  time  Bert  Pittsey 
took  his  staff  position  on  the  newspaper.  He  had  found 
her  in  want,  on  the  streets.  And  he  was  living  with  her, 
now— an  idle  "remittance  man"— no  one  knew  quite 


396  DON-A-DEEAMS 

where.  When  Bert  Pittsey  wished  to  see  him,  he  looked 
either  in  the  smoking-room  of  the  Mills  Hotel,  south  of 
Washington  Square,  or  in  a  little  Italian  caffe  and  music 
hall,  near  by,  in  Sullivan  Street.  Don,  too,  had  gone  to 
see  him  at  this  "charity  house,"  but  Conroy  had  refused 
to  recognize  him,  beyond  leaving  the  smoking-room 
when  he  saw  his  cousin  come  in;  and  Don  had  hurried 
away,  ashamed  of  the  appearance  of  having  spied  on 
his  old  friend's  degradation. 

It  touched  him,  like  a  tragedy.  He  brooded  over  the 
thought  of  Conroy  wandering  about  those  foul  streets 
of  the  tenements,  alone,  or  befriended  only  by  a  woman 
more  unfortunate  and  unhappy  than  he.  By  contrast 
with  Don's  own  happiness  the  picture  was  to  him  appal 
ling.  He  remembered  their  boyish  companionship  in 
Coulton  and  the  day  that  Conroy  had  brought  Margaret 
to  the  little  ravine.  He  foresaw  another  meeting  that 
would  bring  Margaret  to  Conroy  and  insensibly  reclaim 
the  outcast  and  make  him,  in  time,  a  part  of  a  new  life 
in  which  they  three  would  be  united  as  they  had  been 
once.  And  Don  foresaw  that  meeting  and  its  issue 
so  vividly  that  he  believed  he  had  only  to  arrange  it  in 
order  to  make  his  most  impossible  hopes  come  true. 

He  spoke  of  it  to  Bert  Pittsey,  and  Pittsey  shook  his 
head.  "I  don't  believe  you  can  do  anything  for  him 
unless  you  put  new  nerves  into  his  stomach.  I  talked 
to  him  after  you  left  us,  that  time.  He  knows  what 
he  's  doing,  but  he  can't  stop.  The  craving  's  too  strong 
for  him.  You  had  better  leave  him  alone. ' ' 

"But  if  we  were  to  get  him  away  from  it?  If  we 
were  to  get  him  into  a  sanitarium  ? ' ' 

"If!    If!    How  are  you  to  do  it?    As  soon  as  you 


THE  VISIONARY  397 

try  to  interfere  with  him,  he  flies  off  the  handle.  He 
knows  he  can't  help  himself  but  he  just  has  bull-headed- 
ness  enough  not  to  allow  anyone  else  to  help  him." 

Don  thought  it  over.  "If  I  can  arrange  a  plan,  will 
you  join  me?" 

Pittsey  nodded.    ' '  Sure  enough.    I  'm  game. ' ' 

But  Don  could  think  of  no  practical  plan.  He  could 
foresee  a  hundred  different  successful  conclusions  for 
his  efforts,  but  not  the  details  of  a  single  method  of  at 
taining  these  ends.  It  was  not  until  the  approach  of 
Christmas  that  the  vaguest  idea  of  a  possible  procedure 
occurred  to  him.  Then,  arranging  with  Margaret  a 
Christmas  Eve  dinner  to  which  they  were  to  invite  the 
Pittseys,  he  said  suddenly:  "And  Conroy!  Why 
could  n  't  we  get  Conroy  ? ' ' 

' '  Do  you  think  we  could  ? ' '  She  had  heard  the  whole 
story  from  Don,  and  it  had  not  left  her  hopeful.  "Do 
you  think  he  'd  come  ? ' ' 

"Yes.  If  we  go  the  right  way  about  it.  I  must  get 
Bert  to  help.  If  we  could  once  get  him  here— ' ' 

"I  hope  he  won't  spoil  the  dinner." 

He  did  not  sympathize  with  this  consideration  of  the 
young  hostess.  ' '  Nonsense ! "  he  cried.  ' '  What  does  it 
matter  about  the  dinner?"  He  hastened  to  explain, 
apologetically,  when  he  saw  her  expression:  "No,  of 
course  not!  He  '11  not  spoil  it.  He  '11  be  the  jolliest 
of  the  lot  of  us.  You  should  have  seen  some  of  the  din 
ners  we  had  in  our  old  rooms— one  on  the  day  he  first 
found  work  here.  He  '11  be  all  right,  if  we  can  only  get 
him.  I  must  ask  Bert." 

His  mother,  a  few  days  before,  had  sent  him  a  bundle 
of  the  Christmas  numbers  of  the  illustrated  English 


398  DON-A-DREAMS 

papers,  full  of  just  such  pictures  as  Frankie  and  he 
used  to  tack  up  on  the  walls  of  their  playroom ;  and  they 
had  come  to  him  with  such  an  almost  tearful  memory 
of  the  life  he  had  left,  that  he  saw  in  them,  now,  a  pow 
erful  agent  to  help  him  in  his  appeal  to  Conroy.  "I  '11 
go  with  Bert,"  he  said,  "and  try  to  have  a  talk  with 
him.  I  '11  take  those  papers  mother  sent,  as  an  excuse. 
And  if  he  won't  see  me,  I  '11  mail  them  to  him,  and 
write  him  a  letter." 

He  imagined  the  letter— a  Christmas  letter  of  elo 
quent  good-feeling  and  a  manly  offer  to  let  bygones  be 
and  begin  the  future  afresh.  Remembering  his  Dickens, 
he  had  faith  in  the  influence  of  the  season  of  peace  and 
goodwill  to  aid  him  in  his  miracle  of  regeneration. 

HE  made  his  attempt  on  one  of  those  unseasonable  wet 
nights  that  make  Christmas  week  in  New  York  a  time  of 
drizzling  misery  and  bedraggledness.  Down  among  the 
tenements  the  streets  were  brimful  of  muddy  slush;  the 
trestles  of  the  elevated  railroad  dripped  a  fluid  grime ; 
the  street  lights  struggled  against  the  fog  with  the 
feebleness  of  guttered  candles;  the  damp  air  freshened 
the  evil  odors  of  the  quarter  to  a  pungency  that  seemed 
to  Don  to  reach  his  palate.  He  shivered,  with  his  collar 
to  his  ears,  hugging  his  bundle  of  Christmas  papers 
under  his  arm,  trying  to  convince  himself  that  all  this 
doubled  ugliness  of  wet  filth  and  poverty  would  aid  him 
in  his  attack  on  Conroy.  But  he  no  longer  tried  to  con 
vince  Pittsey,  who  was  tired  by  his  long  day's  work  on 
scattered  "assignments"  and  inclined  to  be  sarcastic 
in  his  replies  to  Don's  optimism.  They  went  in  silence, 
slipping  on  the  uneven  flagstones  on  which  the  fog  had 


THE  VISIONARY  399 

congealed  in  a  film  of  ice.  When  they  came  to  the  many- 
windowed  block  of  the  Mills  Hotel,  as  square  and 
formal  as  a  prison  of  cells,  Pittsey  said :  "You  wait  out 
side  for  me  here  until  I  see  him.  He  '11  quarrel  with 
me  for  bringing  you  if  I  take  you  in." 

Don  waited.  After  the  first  few  minutes,  he  was  en 
couraged  to  think  that  at  least  Bert  had  found  Conroy 
where  they  had  planned  to  find  him — probably  smoking 
and  playing  solitaire  at  one  of  the  little  tables  in  that 
room  of  homeless  loafers  with  its  cement  floor  and  its 
vile  smells  of  cheap  tobacco.  And  if  he  was  there,  it 
was  proof  that  he  was  sober,  since  the  rules  of  the  house 
admitted  no  drunkards  to  enjoy  its  steam  heat  and  its 
comfortable  chairs.  As  the  interval  of  waiting  length 
ened  dismally,  he  repented  having  allowed  Bert  to  go 
in  alone,  for  he  had  no  faith  in  the  adroitness  of  Pitt 
sey 's  address  and  he  feared  that  the  whole  undertaking 
might  be  brought  to  failure  by  a  false  beginning.  Sev 
eral  times  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  follow  in  and  try 
to  save  the  situation,  but  each  time  the  resolution  ex 
hausted  itself  in  gazing  through  the  swing  doors  at  the 
lighted  hall  where  several  of  the  better-dressed  patrons 
of  the  house  stood  talking.  After  all,  it  would  be  wiser 
to  wait  until  he  heard  what  Pittsey  had  to  say. 

He  was  at  the  door  again,  standing  irresolute,  with 
his  hand  on  it,  unable  to  gather  the  impulse  to  push  it 
open.  He  saw  Pittsey  coming1  hurriedly,  with  his  head 
down.  He  threw  back  the  door.  "It  's  no  go, ' '  Pittsey 
said.  ' '  Come  away.  Come  away. ' ' 

Don  came  as  far  as  the  sidewalk,  but  stopped  there. 
"What  does  he  say?" 

"Oh  'say'!"    Pittsey  answered  angrily.    "It  's  not 


400  DON-A-DREAMS 

a  question  of  what  he  says !  Leave  him  alone !  He  's 
enjoying  the  delights  of  his  private  inferno  hot  enough 
without  us  coming  down  here  to  poke  it  up  for  him. ' ' 

"Would  n't  he  come  to  the  dinner?" 

Pittsey  was  walking  up  the  street,  Don  hanging  back 
reluctantly.  "No.  He  won't  come  to  the  dinner.  He 
does  n't  even  want  to  hear  that  there  's  a  dinner  for 
him  to  come  to.  Say ! ' '  He  rounded  on  Don  suddenly. 
' '  He  has  the  willies,  if  you  know  what  that  is.  You  '11 
only  drive  him  into  trouble— just  as  you  've  always 
done.  And  it  's  a  dirty  shame  to  be  bothering  him.  We 
can't  do  anything  for  him,  and  he  knows  it.  He  can't 
do  anything  for  himself— and  he  knows  it.  What  he 
needs  is  chloroform  to  put  him  out  of  his  misery.  I 
don't  believe  in  this  particular  form  of  vivisection,  if 
you  want  to  know ! ' ' 

' '  It—  It  seems  to  me  that  if  we  're  ever  going  to  get 
him  away,  we—  we  ought  to  be  able  to  do  it  now— while 
he  's-" 

' '  Yes !  Well,  if  you  could  see  his  face  when  he  's  try 
ing  not  to  talk  about  it,  you  would  n't  relish  the  job." 

Don  turned  over  the  papers  in  his  hand,  looking  down 
at  them.  "I  wish  you  'd  taken  these  in  to  him." 

' '  Go  and  take  them  yourself.    Do ! " 

"Is  n 't  there  any  place  I  could  leave  them  for  him ? 
I  'd  rather  write." 

Pittsey  laughed  harshly.     "By  all  means,  write!" 

"Could  I  leave  them  at  the  hotel?" 

' '  No.  He  's  not  known  at  the  hotel  any  more  than  a 
hundred  other  tramps  that  come  in  there  to  get  warm." 

Don  winced.  "How  about  the  place— the  other  place 
where  you—" 


THE  VISIONARY  401 

They  were  standing  under  a  corner  light,  and  Don, 
for  all  his  meekness,  was  stubbornly  unmoved  by  Pitt- 
sey's  impatience  to  be  away  and  done  with  the  whole 
matter. 

"Look  here,"  Pittsey  said.  "If  I  take  you  there  and 
leave  them  for  him,  that  's  all.  You  can  do  what  you 
like  about  it.  I  '11  not  wait  another  minute  for  you,  you 
understand  ? ' ' 

"Yes." 

"Come  on  then." 

He  walked  as  rapidly  as  his  uncertain  footing  per 
mitted,  and  Don  staggered  along  beside  him,  between 
the  dull  glow  of  little  shop-front  windows  and  the 
churned  sludge  of  the  gutters,  seeing  only  these  two 
features  of  the  streets,  for  his  eyes  were  busy  picking 
out  a  foothold  on  the  treacherous  stones.  Pittsey 
stopped  before  a  basement  saloon  that  was  down  three 
stone  steps  below  the  level  of  the  sidewalk.  "Give  me 
your  papers. ' '  He  left  Don  gazing  at  an  arch  of  frosted 
gas  globes  bearing  the  sign  "Gaffe  Sociale."  On  a 
board  beside  the  entrance,  there  had  once  been  painted : 
"Giuoco  di  Boccia. "  Through  the  dirty  windows  he 
saw  a  fat  Italian  serving  drinks  over  the  bar— Italians 
sitting  at  round  tables  with  their  feet  in  sawdust— more 
Italians  playing  a  game  of  billiards  that  included  five 
pins  set  up  as  if  for  a  miniature  game  of  bowls.  When 
ever  the  door  opened,  he  smelled  a  warm  odor  of  damp 
sawdust  and  stale  beer,  and  he  heard  the  squeak  of  a 
violin  and  the  punctuating  loud  note  of  a  cornet.  He 
saw  Pittsey  pass  the  papers  over  the  bar  and  turn  back 
to  the  door  again.  And  with  a  sudden  resolution,  Don 

26 


402  DON-A-DREAMS 

stumbled  down  the  steps  and  met  him.    "I  'm  going  to 
wait  and  see  him,"    he  said.    "You  need  n't  stay." 

Pittsey  passed  him  without  replying,  and  disap 
peared  up  the  steps  into  the  fog.  Don  went  in,  shut  the 
door  behind  him  and  faced  a  tragic  adventure. 


XI 


HE  was  aware,  at  once,  that  the  bar-room  was  only  a  sort 
of  foyer  to  a  larger  music  hall  in  which  he  could  see  an 
audience  seated  at  tables  before  a  little  stage  on  which 
a  woman  stood  to  sing;  and  he  hurried  into  that  hall 
in  the  hope  of  escaping  notice  in  the  larger  gathering. 
He  found  a  table  in  a  corner  and  sat  down  trembling 
with  audacity.  A  soiled  waiter  polished  off  the  beer 
stains  from  the  table  top  and  bent  to  take  his  order. 
He  said,  throatily:  "Bring  me  a  cigar." 

It  came— in  a  glass  with  three  matches— a  long  "rat- 
tail"  Italian  cigar.  He  lit  it  and  drew  one  puff  that 
had  the  taste  of  scorched  rags.  He  held  it,  fuming,  be 
fore  him,  and  waited  for  Conroy  to  appear,  watching 
the  animated  faces  of  Italians  whose  excited  volubility 
had  no  meaning  for  him,  and  listening  to  the  screaming 
high  notes  of  the  cantatrice  who  sang  with  a  distortion 
of  mouth  that  might  have  been  studied  in  a  dentist's 
chair.  It  was  all  as  unreal  to  him  as  lunacy;  and  an 
old  man  with  a  basket  of  macaroons  on  his  arm,  who 
wandered  from  table  to  table  mumbling  "Bene  cotti, 
bene  cotti,"  had  a  horrid  face— as  brown  and 
wrinkled  as  a  baked  apple— that  made  .the  whole 


THE  VISIONARY  403 

scene  in  some  way  confusedly  hideous  to  Don. 
He  stared  at  three  Italians  at  a  table  who  were  blowing 
out  the  matches  with  which  a  fourth  tried  to  light  his 
cigar,  making  an  unearthly  laughter — at  a  little  girl 
who  drank  from  a  glass  of  beer  primly  and  dried  her 
lips  with  a  dirty  handkerchief  after  each  sip — at  the 
foreign  faces,  the  exaggerated  gestures,  the  sudden 
movements  of  strange  men,  who  had  for  him  only  the 
semi-human  appearance  of  so  many  monkeys  doing 
tricks. 

He  was  leaning  his  elbow  on  the  table,  his  head 
on  his  arm,  relapsed  into  a  blank  depression  of  spirits 
— beaten  upon  by  the  loud  music  and  suffocated  by 
the  foul  smells — when  Conroy  appeared  at  the  entrance 
of  the  hall,  and  Don  ducked  his  head  to  hide  his  face. 
He  looked  up  under  his  fingers.  Conroy  had  seated 
himself  at  a  table  against  the  opposite  wall.  "When  the 
waiter  turned  away  from  him,  Don  could  see  him,  as 
pale  as  despair,  shabby,  unshaven,  staring  listlessly. 
Don  shut  his  eyes.  The  heat  had  dried  them  so  that 
the  touch  of  tears  was  painful. 

When  he  looked  again,  the  waiter  had  returned  with 
a  glass  of  liquor  and  the  bundle  of  papers  which  Pittsey 
had  left  at  the  bar ;  and  Conroy,  after  vainly  trying  to 
understand  the  man's  explanation  in  Italian,  nodded 
and  tried  to  smile  and  sent  him  away.  He  drank  half 
the  glass  at  a  gulp  and  settled  back  in  his  chair,  drum 
ming  on  the  table  with  shaking  fingers. 

The  woman  on  the  stage  was  singing  the  "Marseil 
laise."  She  followed  it  with  "The  Watch  on  the 
Rhine, ' '  the  Russian  national  anthem,  and  the  Austrian. 
She  announced  "God  Save  Or  Caween,"  and  Conroy 


404  DON-A-DREAMS 

frowned  at  her.  Her  voice  rang  in  the  little  hall  with 
the  deep  notes  of  the  old  song.  It  soared  with  the 
triumph  of  "Senda  her  veectorious,  happa  an'  gloree- 
ous,"  and  Conroy  drew  down  the  brim  of  his  hat  and 
muttered.  It  faded  into  a  whisper,  sweet  as  old  mem 
ories,  with  its  prayerful  "Goda  save  or  ca-ween. " 
And  Conroy  tried  to  drown  it  in  the  draught  of  poison 
ous  whiskey  that  was  left  in  his  glass. 

For  that  song  had  come  on  him— as  it  had  come  on 
Don— with  the  perfume  of  old  days  from  the  life  he 
had  lost.  It  had  seized  and  shaken  him,  as  remembered 
music  will.  He  called  for  more  drink,  fearfully  aware 
of  the  approach  of  that  self -horror  against  which  he 
had  been  fighting  when  Pittsey  came  to  aid  it — afraid 
of  the  weakness  of  vain  regret,  struggling  up  from  the 
terrible  despondency  that  was  clutching  at  him.  And 
the  tune  haunted  him  with  the  loyal  voices  of  youths 
singing  together,  with  the  clink  of  social  glasses  at  a 
college  dinner  drinking  the  queen 's  health,  with  the  far 
note  of  a  military  band  across  the  sunny  campus.  He 
fought  against  it,  working  the  muscles  of  his  face.  He 
drank  more  liquor  desperately,  his  brain  beginning  to 
reel  in  the  vertigo  of  drunkenness,  with  vivid  pictures 
of  home,  the  laugh  of  voices  dearly  familiar  to  him,  the 
flash  of  smiling  faces — as  confused  as  in  a  dream,  and 
like  a  dream  stirring  a  torturing  regret.  He  tried  to 
listen  to  the  woman  singing  "The  Star  Spangled  Ban 
ner,"  and  for  an  instant  he  got  it  clear  in  his  ears,  but 
the  riot  of  memory  burst  in  again  and  he  fought  it  back, 
struggling  with  trembling  lips  and  fingers  that  twitched 
on  his  glass. 

He  turned  frantically  to  the  bundle  of  papers  on  the 


THE  VISIONARY  405 

table  and  tore  off  the  wrapper  and  spread  the  first  one 
eagerly.  He  began  with  the  advertisements,  but  he 
could  read  only  the  forms  of  the  words;  they  had  no 
meaning  and  they  marched  crazily  to  the  tune  in  his 
head.  He  turned  to  the  pictures.  And  these  were  the 
old  fond  pictures  of  snow  and  sunset,  of  country  homes, 
of  jolly  plum-pudding  dinners,  of  girls  skating  in  furs 
or  dancing  under  the  holly.  They  were  the  embodiment 
to  his  eyes  of  all  that  his  young  Christmas  had  aspired 
to  be.  The  million  memories  of  boyhood  and  youth,  of 
college  days  and  homecoming,  of  Christmas  holidays  and 
Christmas  sports  stung  and  tormented  him.  He  turned 
the  pages  in  a  trance  of  thought,  page  after  page,  fas 
cinated.  And  when  he  looked  up  from  them  he  found 
a  nightmare  life  around  him,  dinning  discordant  music 
in  his  ears,  choking  him  with  the  thick  heat  and  the 
odor  of  unclean  bodies.  He  ripped  the  paper  up  with 
an  oath  and  threw  it  on  the  floor.  Then  he  rose  un 
steadily  and  staggered  out  of  the  hall. 

Don,  after  one  guilty  moment  of  hesitation,  shoved 
back  his  chair  and  followed.  He  came  into  the  bar 
room  as  the  street  door  slammed  at  Conroy's  heels.  He 
ran  out  to  the  sidewalk  and  stood  facing  a  curtain  of 
fog  behind  which  Conroy  had  been  lost  in  an  instant. 
He  wandered  about  the  streets,  shuddering  with  the 
cold  and  with  the  horror  of  having  helped  to  agonize 
despair.  When  he  came  on  an  elevated  station,  he 
accepted  the  futility  of  his  hope,  and  turned  home 
wards. 

And  Conroy,  driven  from  the  shelter  of  his  familiar 
haunts,  where  he  was  a  known  and— in  the  sodden  way 
of  bar-rooms — an  honored  customer,  went  lurching 


406  DON-A-DREAMS 

from  one  saloon  to  another,  attempting,  by  stupefying 
himself  in  a  wild  debauch,  to  escape  the  remorse  that 
drove  him  along  the  streets.  He  had  received  a  Christ 
mas  letter  that  morning  from  his  mother,  and  the  money 
that  she  had  sent  him  made  a  trail  behind  him  as  he 
went.  He  came  to  a  saloon  full  of  negroes  in  lower 
Sullivan  street;  and  in  paying  the  barkeeper  he  drew 
out  a  handful  of  bills  and  displayed  them  with  a  reck 
lessness  that  had  its  inevitable  issue,  for  when  he  left 
that  bar-room  two  wolfish  mulattos  followed  him  to  the 
street ;  and  the  fog  closed  over  the  thugs  and  their  vic 
tim. 

In  the  morning  he  was  found  lying  in  a  passageway 
that  led  to  a  rear  tenement,  his  pockets  rifled,  insensible 
from  the  blow  of  a  black-jack  on  the  back  of  his  head. 

THERE  was  no  Christmas  Eve  dinner  in  Don's  flat  that 
next  day.  Conroy  lay  in  the  hospital,  unconscious,  be 
tween  life  and  death.  Bert  Pittsey  had  accused  Don  of 
being  the  blundering  cause  of  each  step  in  his  cousin's 
downfall  and  the  wilful  agent  of  his  last  undoing. 
Miss  Morris's  silence  had  left  him  no  doubt  of  her  dis 
gust  of  him.  All  the  failures  of  his  life  had  crushed 
down  on  him  together  and  buried  him  in  the  depths. 

He  sat  at  midnight,  before  his  writing  table,  unable 
to  go  to  bed,  staring  as  if  he  had  seen  a  ghost ;  and  the 
ghost  that  he  had  seen  was  the  memory  of  his  dead  past, 
risen  to  rebuke  him  with  the  crimes  of  his  incapacity. 
He  saw  his  mother  with  that  face  of  sorrow  which  had 
so  often  looked  out  on  him  from  his  dreams.  He  saw 
his  father  leaning  across  the  cluttered  dining-table, 
glaring  at  him  in  angry  accusation.  He  saw  Miss  Mor- 


THE  VISIONARY  407 

ris  watching  him  from  the  crowded  stage  of  "The 
Rajah's  Ruby,"  dumbly  tragical.  The  glazed  eyes  of 
Conroy's  hatred  stared  at  him  like  the  dull  eyes  of  the 
dead.  He  shuddered  at  the  thought  that  some  day  Mar 
garet's  face  might  join  that  company  of  malevolence 
and  accuse  him  of  the  wreck  of  her  life. 

Above  all,  he  saw  himself  moving  like  a  blind  fool 
through  this  unregarded  misery,  the  execrated  cause  of 
it,  ruthless  and  hateful.  The  elder  Miss  Morris's  cold 
smile  changed  into  Mrs.  McGahn's  large-mouthed  and 
voluble  exasperation.  Walter  Pittsey's  "Don  Quixote" 
echoed  from  some  forgotten  record  of  his  memory  with 
a  contemptuous  accent.  Kidder  lectured  him.  The 
stage  manager  of  ' '  The  Ruby ' '  cursed  him.  Every  dis 
graceful  incident  of  his  life  rose  to  point  its  finger  at 
him ;  and  he  took  his  head  in  his  hands  and  groaned. 

His  very  imagination,  that  had  been  turned  always 
on  the  future,  cast  its  light  back  on  his  past,  now,  and 
illumined  it  with  a  baleful  vividness.  For  the  first  time 
he  saw  himself  as  one  might  see  a  character  in  a  book, 
among  the  men  and  women,  friends  and  relatives  who 
had  moved  and  talked  and  loved  and  sorrowed  around 
him.  He  watched  them,  as  one  would  watch  a  play, 
sitting  above  them,  above  himself,  above  life,  observing 
and  understanding  it  all.  And  slowly,  as  he  watched, 
the  shame  of  his  part  in  it  detached  itself  from  him. 
He  began  to  study  it  with  a  curious  aloofness.  It  had 
an  appearance  of  unreality,  of  an  illusion  from  which 
he  had  escaped.  The  illusion  of  life ! 

He  looked  up  at  the  wall  before  him  with  the  eyes 
of  a  trance — seeing  the  city  lying  asleep  below  him,  the 
men  and  women  in  their  beds,  insensible,  like  discarded 


408  DON-A-DREAMS 

marionettes.  Overhead,  the  moon  and  the  stars  stood  in 
their  appointed  places  amid  the  mystery  of  space ;  and 
the  haste  and  labor  of  the  day  were  silly  to  remember, 
mocked  at  by  the  quiet  sarcasm  of  old  night.  "Life!" 
he  thought.  "Life,  the  great  illusion !"  He  smiled  the 
derisive  phantom  of  a  smile;  and  that  smile,  he  felt, 
was  to  be,  forever  after,  the  secret  aspect  and  expres 
sion  of  his  thought ;  his  happiness  was  to  be  of  that  com 
plexion  ;  his  failures,  his  sorrows,  his  tragedies  were  to 
wear  at  last  something  of  that  same  face. 

It  reminded  him  of  his  Emerson,  and  he  reached  the 
volume  from  the  row  before  him,  unseeingly,  his  mind 
busy  with  his  thoughts.  He  turned  to  a  remembered 
passage  in  the  essay  on  "Illusions."  He  read:  "There 
is  no  chance  and  no  anarchy  in  the  universe.  All  is 
system  and  gradation.  Every  god  is  there  sitting  in 
his  sphere.  The  young  mortal  enters  the  hall  of  the 
firmament;  there  he  is  alone  with  them  alone,  they 
pouring  on  him  benedictions  and  gifts  and  beckoning 
him  up  to  their  thrones.  On  the  instant,  and  inces 
santly,  fall  snowstorms  of  illusions.  He  fancies  himself 
in  a  vast  crowd  which  sways  this  way  and  that  and 
whose  movements  and  doings  he  must  obey;  he  fancies 
himself  poor,  orphaned,  insignificant.  The  mad  crowd 
drives  hither  and  thither,  now  furiously  commanding 
this  thing  to  be  done,  now  that.  What  is  he  that  he 
should  resist  their  will,  and  think  or  act  for  himself? 
Every  moment  new  changes  and  new  showers  of  de 
ception  to  baffle  and  distract  him.  And  when,  by  and 
by,  for  an  instant,  the  air  clears  and  the  cloud  lifts  a 
little,  there  are  the  gods  still  sitting  around  him  on 
their  thrones— they  alone  with  him  alone." 


THE  VISIONARY  409 

The  air  had  cleared!  The  cloud  had  lifted!  The 
visionary  had  caught  the  first  full  sight  of  that  vision 
which  was  to  make  the  world  less  real  to  him  thereafter 
than  the  matter  of  his  thought.  The  idealist  had  fought 
his  way,  through  the  opposition  of  science  and  the  reali 
ties,  to  his  possession  of  the  great  ideal.  The  dreamer 
had  made  life  itself  the  dream.  Don,  full-grown,  was 
ready  to  achieve  his  destiny. 

At  the  ringing  of  the  electric  bell  of  his  apartment, 
he  rose  mechanically ;  and  still  staring  before  him  with 
blind  eyes,  he  went  to  open  his  door. 

Bert  Pittsey  was  shaking  the  snow  from  his  hat  brim, 
in  the  outer  hall.  "They  've  operated  on  Conroy,"  he 
said  in  a  manner  that  was  roughly  apologetic.  ' '  He  '11 
recover.  I  thought  you  'd  like  to  know. ' ' 

Don  passed  his  hand  across  his  eyes.  "Yes. 
Thanks,"  he  said  thickly.  "Won't  you  come  in?" 

Bert  studied  him.    "Were  you  asleep?" 

"No-o." 

"Walt  was  afraid  you  might  be.  He  would  n't  come 
up.  He  's  downstairs." 

Don  shook  his  head,  meaninglessly. 

"I  think  I  '11  get  him.  He  has  some  news  for  you— 
from  Polk." 

He  disappeared  down  the  stairs.  Don  went  back  into 
his  room  and  sat  down  to  wait,  in  a  sort  of  numb  indif 
ference.  He  reached  an  empty  pipe  and  held  it  with 
the  mouthpiece  against  his  pursed  lips.  "Come  in," 
he  said. 

Walter  Pittsey  smiled  down  at  him.  "I  was  afraid 
that  you  might  be  in  bed.  I  saw  Polk  this  evening.  He 
says  there  's  'something'  in  your  'Winter'— something 


410  DON-A-DREAMS 

that  he  thinks  he  could  work  up  into  an  extravaganza. 
He  wants  to  see  you  about  it.  He  '11  probably  offer  to 
buy  it  from  you.  What  do  you  say  ? ' ' 

He  waited,  expecting  the  boyish  delight  which  did 
not  appear.  Don  did  not  raise  his  eyes.  "He  can  have 
it." 

Walter  coughed.  "Well,  you  don't  seem  much  ex 
cited!" 

He  laid  aside  his  pipe.  "Sit  down,  won't  you?  I  '11 
get  Margaret. ' ' 

He  went  down  the  inner  hall  to  their  bedroom.  Wal 
ter  Pittsey  looked  around  at  Bert.  They  exchanged 
glances  of  amused  perplexity.  The  younger  brother 
laughed :  ' '  He  's  one  too  many  for  me. ' ' 

But  if  Don  was  not  enthusiastic,  Margaret,  in  dress 
ing  gown  and  "mules,"  more  than  made  up  his  lack  of 
spirit.  ' '  Oh  Don  ! ' '  she  cried.  ' '  Your  first  play ! 
What  did  he  say?  Tell  me!  Tell  me— everything!" 

Walter  told  her  what  little  there  was  to  tell ;  and  Bert 
added  his  quota  of  good  news  about  Conroy.  "His 
father  arrived  at  six  o'clock.  There  was  a  pressure  on 
the  brain.  They  operated  to  relieve  it,  and  they  're 
going  to  take  him  home  as  soon  as  he  can  be  moved.  He 
wants  to  go. ' '  He  turned  to  Don.  ' '  That  bump  on  the 
head  has  done  the  business  for  him." 

Don  smiled,  crookedly.  "I— I  hope —  He  did  not 
say  what  he  hoped.  He  leaned  forward  in  his  chair 
and  put  his  face  in  his  hands.  "I  'm—  I  've  had  a 
bad  day,  I  guess, ' '  he  faltered.  "I  feel  .  .  .  rather 
.  .  .  knocked  out  myself." 

Margaret  went  to  him,  and  knelt  on  the  floor  beside 


THE  VISIONARY  411 

him,  and  put  her  arm  across  his  shoulders.  "Don," 
she  whispered.  ' '  What  is  it  ?  Are  you  ill  ? " 

He  did  not  answer. 

She  tried  to  draw  his  hands  from  his  face,  to  see  him. 
She  found  his  fingers  wet.  "0 — oh!"  She  looked  up 
at  the  Pittseys,  her  lips  trembling. 

They  caught  up  their  hats  and  hurried  each  other 
silently  out  of  the  room. 

AND  that  was  the  beginning  of  a  success  in  life  that 
realized  all  Don's  dreams.  Polk  had  found  "some 
thing"  in  his  "Winter";  he  had  found,  in  fact,  the 
promise  which  the  years  were  to  develop,  and  he  took 
the  process  of  development  in  hand.  The  story  of 
Don 's  progress  has  already  been  followed  by  the  dram 
atic  critics — to  various  conclusions,  for  they  are  still 
uncertain  whether  he  is  "a  possible  successor  to  the 
Shakespeare  of  'The  Tempest'  and  'The  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream',"  or  only  "an  emasculated  lyric-opera 
librettist  with  a  disordered  fancy  and  a  naturalistic 
technique."  He  says  himself,  to  Margaret:  "I  don't 
know— and  I  don't  care — what  I  am.  At  one  time,  I 
thought  I  was  a  fool— because  everyone  else  thought 
so.  Now  they  tell  me  I  'm  a  genius — and,  naturally. 
I  'ha'  ma  doots.'  '  In  either  case,  he  has  found  him 
self  ;  he  has  found  his  work ;  he  is  happy. 

He  has  kept  his  promise  to  Miss  Morris.  She  came 
back  from  San  Francisco  to  play  the  lead  in  ' '  The  Magic 
Ring,"  and  she  made  her  name  in  it.  When  she  mar 
ried  Kuffman,  she  was  already  known  as  "the  most 
beautiful  woman  on  the  American  stage ' ' ;  Kuffman  has 


412  DON-A-DREAMS 

worked  all  the  oracles  to  make  her  famous,  and  though 
some  of  the  critics  still  complain  that  she  is  stiff,  the 
public  is  convinced  that  she  is  a  great  and  classical 
tragedienne.  To  Don  she  has  become  a  somewhat  pa 
thetic  puzzle.  Her  husband  worships  her— worships  her 
"like  a  graven  image"  as  Bert  Pittsey  says.  It  was 
Pittsey  who  nicknamed  the  pair  "Pygmalion  and  Gala 
tea."  He  is  the  dramatic  critic  of  an  evening  paper, 
now ;  and  no  matter  what  he  writes  he  tries  to  write  it 
flippantly.  When  he  is  asked  why  he  does  not  attack 
the  theatrical  trust,  he  explains :  ' '  My  brother  is  in  it. 
It  's  bad  taste  to  air  a  purely  family  quarrel  in  the  news 
papers,  don't  you  think?"  And  when  Walter  hears  of 
this  he  clears  his  throat — and  smiles. 

For  the  rest :  Don  spends  a  frequent  "  honeymoon  "  in 
Coulton  where  Conroy,  now  soberly  settled  down,  is 
managing  a  department  of  his  father's  business,  and  F. 
Grayson  Gregg  is  the  junior  partner  in  the  law  firm  of 
"Gregg  and  Gregg,"  and  Mr.  Gregg  no  longer  tries 
to  hide  from  himself  that  he  is  not  as  proud  of  Frank  as 
he  is  of  his  other  son,  ' '  the  dramatist. ' '  Don  still  finds 
his  mother,  in  her  invalid  chair  beside  the  window,  wait 
ing  to  welcome  him  with  her  remembered  smile.  The 
peephole  still  remains  in  the  frosted  glass  of  the  nurs 
ery  door  through  which  he  looked  at  Santa  Claus.  Mar 
garet  and  he  can  still  make  a  smiling  pilgrimage  to  the 
little  ravine  where  they  used  to  read  the  "Faerie 
Queene"  together;  and  there— as  if  the  breath  of  the 
firs  refreshed  the  unquenchable  youth  in  him— she 
finds  him  still  a  lover,  still  a  poet  in  spite  of  any  disil 
lusionment,  still  a  gentle  solitary,  and  still  Don-a- 
Dreams. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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Form  L9-50m-4,'61(B8994s4)444 


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CO  7d  Don-a-dr  e  ams 


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